* The authors are, respectively, Professor of Economics, University of Western Ontario, and Economist, OECD Development Centre. They wish to acknowledge their intellectual debt to the numerous Ghanaian academics, business leaders, officials, and others who gave so generously of their time in providing information. The assistance of Julie Ong in preparing some of the charts is also appreciated. The authors are very grateful to Jean-Claude Berthelemy, Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa, and Jay Salkin for helpful comments on an earlier version. They are responsible, nevertheless, for both the interpretation and any errors that may remain. Ghana: Long Term Growth, Atrophy, and Recovery A report for the OECD Development Centre project Emerging Africa by J. Clark Leith Department of Economics University of Western Ontario London, CANADA E-mail: <[email protected]> and Ludvig Söderling * Development Centre OECD Paris, FRANCE E-mail: <Ludvig.SODERLING.oecd.org> June 2000
Transcript
* The authors are, respectively, Professor of Economics, University of WesternOntario, and Economist, OECD Development Centre. They wish to acknowledge theirintellectual debt to the numerous Ghanaian academics, business leaders, officials, and otherswho gave so generously of their time in providing information. The assistance of Julie Ong inpreparing some of the charts is also appreciated. The authors are very grateful to Jean-ClaudeBerthelemy, Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa, and Jay Salkin for helpful comments on an earlier version. They are responsible, nevertheless, for both the interpretation and any errors that may remain.
ADB Agricultural Development Bank AFRC Armed Forces Revolutionary Council AGS Ashanti Goldfields Corporation BBG Barclays Bank Ghana BED Bank Examination Department BHC Bank for Housing and Construction BMP Black Market PremiumBOG Bank Of GhanaCDRs Committees for the Defence of the Revolution CMB Cocoa Marketing Board CPI Consumer Price IndexCPP Convention People’s Party DIC Divestiture Implementation Committee ERP Economic Recovery ProgramESAF Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility FINSAP Financial Sector Adjustment Program GCB Ghana Commercial Bank GOG Government of GhanaGSE Ghana Stock Exchange NAL National Alliance of Liberals NBFI Non Banking Financial InstitutionNDC National Democratic Congress NIB National Investment BankNLC National Liberation Council NPA Non-Performing Asset NPART Non-Performing Assets Recovery Trust NRC National Redemption Council PDC People’s Defence CommitteePNDC Provisional National Defense Council PNP People’s National Party SCB Standard Chartered Bank SMC Supreme Military Council SOE State Owned Enterprise SSB Social Security Bank SSNIT Social Security National Insurance Trust UGCC United Gold Coast Convention VAT Value Added TaxWDC Workers’ Defence Committee
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Chronology of Regimes and Events Since World War II
1946 African majority in Legislative Council.1948 Political agitation against 1946 constitution.1951 New constitution granted internal self government; election won by Nkrumah in
landslide.1954 Further elections won by Nkrumah as Prime Minister, and again in 1956.1957 Independence (March 6), Nkrumah as Prime Minister.1960 Ghana becomes republic and Nkrumah President. Exchange controls imposed.1964 Single party (CPP) government.1966 Military coup, replaces Nkrumah and establishes National Liberation Council; Brigadier
A.Afrifa initially Commissioner of Finance and later Chairman.1967 Devaluation of Cedi from c/0.71/$ to c/1.02/$.1969 Elections (August), and elected government led by K. Busia takes office (October).1971 Devaluation of Cedi from c/1.02 to c/1.82/$ (December).1972 Military coup overthrows Busia government; establishes National Redemption Council
with I.K. Acheampong, Chairman (January). Revaluation of Cedi to c/1.28/$, and importand exchange controls tightened (February).
1975 Acheampong replaces NRC with all military Supreme Military Council.1977 Inflation exceeds 100% for first time.1978 SMC replaces Acheampong with General Akuffo (July). Cedi devalued to c/2.75/$.
Urban strikes and political unrest (June 1978 through May 1979).1979 J.J. Rawlings attempts coup (May), put on trial; mutiny of lower ranks replaces SMC
with Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (June), headed by Rawlings, which launchescampaign against corruption and black marketeering. Acheampong, Akuffo, and Afrifaexecuted. Scheduled elections held (July), won by Limann who takes office (September).
1981 Rawlings leads new coup (December 31), establishes Provisional National DefenceCouncil government.
1982 Disastrous events, including drought, murder of judges, expulsion of Ghanaians fromNigeria, and attempted coups.
1983 Economic Recovery Program launched, and gradual recovery of economy begins.
1992 Government budget deficit reopens. Elections for President won by Rawlings. Opposition boycotts parliamentary elections.
1996 Elections for President won by Rawlings, and several opposition members elected toparliament.
2000 Elections scheduled for December, Rawlings ineligible to run, and has declared intention
to retire.
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Introduction
Ghana's independence in March 1957 was celebrated with great flourish. “Free at last !” Kwame
Nkrumah, the country's leader, proclaimed.
Yes, Ghana was free to follow an independent political course, and free to experiment with an
independent economic direction. But the exercise of that freedom proved to be destructive.
Gradually removing internal agents of restraint, and unconcerned about external constraints,
Nkrumah pursued his grand vision of Ghana. But, that vision became a nightmare. More than a
quarter century of increasingly chaotic political and economic turbulence followed.
Eventually a major reform program was launched, but after fifteen years its success has been
modest. While the downward spiral has been halted, and real growth resumed, real GDP per
capita and total factor productivity have barely exceeded the levels achieved at independence.
The long-run economic and political records are both lackluster, each limiting the potential of the
other. The question is, why has Ghana not achieved sustained and rapid long-term growth? This
study seeks to provide an answer.
As we review the experience of the forty plus years of independence, five explanatory themes
recur.
The first theme is excess demand. Repeatedly, fiscal and monetary policies have been excessively
expansionary, generating bouts of inflation, followed by painful adjustment. Ghanaian
entrepreneurs have seldom been able to count on a stable macroeconomic environment for more
than a few months into the future. Such a short-term horizon has been damaging.
Currency overvaluation is the second theme. Initially the problem was a fixed nominal exchange
rate, maintained in the face of domestic inflation. Exchange controls followed, while inflation
accelerated. The real price of foreign exchange was depressed to a small fraction of its level at
independence, and forced the economy to become virtually autarkic. Recovery of the real
exchange rate under the reform program has occurred, but its instability remains a serious source
of uncertainty for all – exporters, import competing producers, and foreign investors alike.
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Third, closely related to the foregoing, Ghana has frequently failed to realize the potential gains
from pursuing and supporting its comparative advantage. Among the traditional exports, cocoa
suffered from a variety of devices that suppressed the real producer price and depressed
production to well below its optimum. Minerals, until recently, endured state ownership, and
neglect of infrastructure.
The fourth theme is suppression of the financial sector. With the state heavily involved in running
financial institutions, and repeated confiscation of assets both directly and via inflation, individuals
are reluctant to hold financial assets. The financial sector, consequently, does not yet play its
potential roles in bringing savers and investors together.
The fifth theme concerns the role of the state. The state was stretched far beyond its abilities.
The overextended reach of government and the administrative complexity of many programs
pushed the state well beyond the limits of activities that it could handle efficiently and without
corruption. This seriously compromised the effectiveness of nearly everything the state was
involved in, ranging from education to health care to state-owned enterprises to administration of
economic controls. The outcome was a near collapse of the state. Not only was the state
ineffective in its economic activities, but it failed to consistently control predation by its agents.
Real assets were confiscated, both by direct seizure and indirectly by economic policies. At
various times agents of the state extorted huge rents from society and beat hapless victims.
The lingering sense that such experiences might recur, leaves the economy achieving far less than
its potential, in spite of significant economic and political reforms achieved over the past fifteen
years.
To appreciate why Ghana’s modern history unfolded in this way, it is necessary to understand
both the political and economic dimensions. We begin in Chapter 1 with an overview of the
economic and political record of the various regimes that governed Ghana from independence
through to the launch of the economic reform program in 1983. Those reforms and the
consequences are the subject of Chapter 2. The major conclusions are presented in Chapter 3.
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1. Economic and Political Record
The heavy hand of history hangs over modern Ghana’s economics and politics. Overlapping
influences of ideology, regional interests, ethnic and religious groups, to say nothing of different
economic interests, have all played a role. The rules of the political game have oscillated across
democracy, varying degrees of authoritarianism, and different types of banditry. The participation
of the state in the economic system has shifted from minimalist colonial oversight to heavy
involvement in the means of production, and back towards a middle road.
The current and future economic development of the country thus derive from a complex of past
economic and political events. For this reason, we begin this study with a review of the political
and economic record from independence through to the launch of the major reform program in
1983.
The initial optimism and perverse economic policies of Nkrumah (1951-1966) were followed by a
military coup. After a relatively brief period of resetting economic policies (1966-1969), the reins
of government were turned over to the democratically elected Busia (1969-1971), only to be
usurped again by the military, but this time with much more pernicious results(1972-1979). After
depressing real incomes, and amid widespread disgust with the venality of the officers,
a turbulent period followed. The military officers were thrown out by their juniors (1979), to be
replaced by an inept elected government (1979-1981). A new attempt by the junior military ranks
to restore morality to government (1982) elicited widespread public revulsion for its atrocities and
exacerbated the mistrust of government by all economic agents. Finally, an economic reform
program was launched (1983), but the economic and political history could not be erased.
-4-
The Nkrumah Years
Overview of Politics
Kwame Nkrumah led his country to independence in 1957. Yet even before independence, the
foundation of a damaging politico-economic nexus had been laid. Demands that the power of the
state be used to arbitrate distributional claims emerged in 1948 when violent anti-colonial protests
erupted in Accra, based largely on discontents of urban lower classes. The colonial government
seemed incapable of dealing with a range of pressing problems -- from diseased cocoa trees, to
inflation, to unemployment of returned service men. When the riots led to looting and several
deaths in various urban centers, the colonial government briefly jailed six leaders, including J.B.
Danquah and Nkrumah, then respectively leader and organizing secretary of the United Gold
Coast Convention (UGCC). This stimulated Britain, the colonial power, to consider
constitutional changes beyond the modest 1946 granting of an African majority in the legislative
assembly.
Internal self-government was ceded, effective 1951, including eight ministerial posts held by
Africans. But this pace was too slow for Nkrumah and those he represented. Nkrumah had split
with the more conservative UGCC in late 1949 to form his own Convention People’s Party (CPP),
and continued agitation for full and immediate “Dominion” status, similar to Australia, Canada,
and various other former British colonies. Nkrumah was again jailed, and while still in jail
garnered an electoral landslide in the first elections under the new constitutional dispensation
(1951). This win was based in part on Nkrumah's reputation as leader of the anti-colonial
movement, but also reflected his promises to respond to the interests of the urban lower classes.
(See Austin 1966, and Bourret 1960.)
The need for basic services of all kinds was widely acknowledged, both in the colonies that were
to become Ghana, and in Britain. It was implicitly assumed that these should be provided by
government. The leading role of government was seen as justified by the fact that since the
services did not exist, and since there did not appear to exist an African entrepreneurial class
capable of offering the services, it was necessary therefore to rely on government. During the
first few years of internal self government, Nkrumah and his ministers attempted to respond with
large government expenditures, intended to promote rapid economic and social development.
This was financed in part by the government surplus which had accumulated during the World
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War II, and the high world price of cocoa which was part of the commodities boom induced by
the Korean War. The seeds of future economic problems with a bloated public sector were
planted.
In spite of widespread agreement within the various parts of the future Ghana that independence
was a desirable objective, there was not wide agreement on the constitutional structure. Nkrumah
and the CPP sought immediate independence with a unitary state, while a combination of regional
interests in Ashanti, Togoland, the Northern Territories, and the traditional rulers, sought a
federal form of government with safeguards to prevent a post-independence government from
altering the rules of the game. Following a decisive electoral win by Nkrumah’s party in 1956,
Britain acceded to Nkrumah’s position, and granted independence effective March 6, 1957.
In the years following independence, the fears of the opposition proved justified. Three years
later a plebiscite was held on a republican constitution, creating a unicameral legislature and
placing substantial executive authority in the hands of a president. It is widely believed that the
CPP manipulated the results to ensure a sizeable majority in favor of the constitution and of
Nkrumah as president. This was followed, in 1964, by a referendum declaring Ghana a single
party state, and the CPP the only party, which was allegedly endorsed by 99.9% of the voters.
Nkrumah was preoccupied with pan-African matters, while the CPP, no longer forced to remain
united in the face of an active opposition, became increasingly corrupt and rent by internal
disputes. Both Nkrumah and the party were isolated from the society they claimed to represent.
Finally, while Nkrumah was out of the country in early 1966, he was ousted in a military coup.
Fiscal and Monetary Policies
Nkrumah left Ghana no better off than when he started. GDP per capita in real terms, despite all
its well known limitations, tells the story clearly and simply. (See Figure 1.) By 1966, GDP per
capita was no greater than in 1951. This was the outcome of a destructive set of economic
policies. The primary villain was an overly ambitious government expenditure program that
pushed the budget deficit to over 6% of GDP. (See Figure 2.) For this reason, we begin our look
at Nkrumah’s economic policies by examining the sources of excess aggregate demand.
-6-
Figure 1
Source: International Financial Statistics
The colonial legislature had no power to pursue independent economic policies. Before the
introduction of internal self government, taxation, mostly on foreign trade, including cocoa, was
set by the British colonial administration. Similarly, government expenditure budgets were set by
the colonial governors, and strict financial controls ensured that budgets were not overspent. The
currency was the pound, issued by the West African Currency Board, in a typical currency board
arrangement, with a fixed exchange rate against the pound sterling. Even when internal self
government was granted in 1951, the finance ministry was not turned over to an African: it was
reserved for a European.
-7-
Figure 2
Source: International Financial Statistics
Nkrumah gradually stripped away these constraints. To see the consequences, we look first at
various indicators of excess demand. We then turn to examine the sources of that excess demand.
The most common indicator of excess demand is the presence of inflation. There are various
measures of inflation, the most widely cited measure being the rate of change of consumer prices.
This uses weights that reflect the expenditure patterns of the typical family. Another common
measure uses the GDP deflator, which reflects prices of the goods and services that are produced
in the domestic economy. Both tend to move together, but because consumer price indexes
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exclude items that may be a significant part of the domestic output, the CPI measure is usually
more exaggerated in its movements.
From the perspective of the 1970s and early 1980s, inflation under Nkrumah was not substantial.
However, from the perspective of the time and in view of the fixed exchange rate, it was
significant. Further, both measures of excess demand pressure were accelerating. By 1965,
Nkrumah’s last year in power, CPI inflation had exceeded 20% (Figure 3).
Figure 3
Source: International Financial Statistics
Yet, it is possible to have excess demand without inflation if the excess demand is being met by
supply from outside the domestic economy. Given the possibility that the excess demand may
show itself in different ways at different times, it is necessary to look at indicators of both the
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external account and internal prices to identify the presence or absence of excess demand. In light
of this, in Figure 3 we also report the exports minus imports of goods and services, relative to
GDP. This reveals that during the first half of the 1960s a significant deficit was run. The
cumulative effect of the deficits was to draw down the foreign assets of the banking system from a
peak in 1955 of over 40% of GDP to zero at the end of 1965 (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Source: International Financial Statistics
In addition to drawing down substantial foreign exchange reserves, Nkrumah incurred a
significant foreign debt, in part for major development projects, but in part as suppliers’ credits
financing current purchases. Thus, the ability to run a current account deficit by drawing down
reserves and taking on short-term debt enabled Nkrumah's government to keep inflation from
becoming more serious in the face of a substantial excess demand.
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It remains to identify the sources of that excess demand. Potential sources of excess demand
include, of course, the government budget, and loose monetary policy. It is clear from Figures 2
and 5 that these were indeed the major influences at work in Ghana under Nkrumah’s rule.
Government expenditure grew rapidly, even from the earliest days of internal self government.
Although various devices to generate more revenues were implemented, by 1960 a significant and
rising budget deficit was left to be financed. Further, the share of GDP taken by government
expenditure was rising (Figure 2). In the early Nkrumah years some of the fiscal deficit was
financed from foreign sources, including drawing down the foreign exchange reserves and debt, as
noted above. A substantial portion was left to be financed from the domestic monetary system.
Initially this involved simply drawing down government balances in the banking system, but by
1961 those balances were exhausted. As a result, government began to issue Treasury Bills in
1960, and in the next year became a net borrower from the banking system. Credit from the
banking system to government increased rapidly, to the point that at the end of 1965 (shortly
before Nkrumah was removed from office) it was 12% of GDP (Figure 4).
At independence the Bank of Ghana was established as the central bank, and the Ghanaian pound
created. Monetary policy became de jure independent of the colonial arrangements in 1958 when
the Bank of Ghana took over both the issue of currency and the foreign exchange reserves from
the West African Currency Board. Ghana remained part of the Sterling area, which meant that:
imports from within the Sterling area did not require prior authorization; payments inside the area
for invisibles were freely made; surrender of proceeds from exports to the rest of the area was not
required; and there were no restrictions on capital account payments with the Sterling area.
Given the fixed exchange rate and foreign exchange reserves available to draw down, two
important features followed from the absence of exchange controls vis-a-vis the rest of the
Sterling area. First, the automatic monetary adjustment mechanism was at work: changes in the
foreign assets were reflected in changes in the domestic money stock (Figure 4). This kept
growth of the money stock within bounds (Figure 5). Second, Ghana’s price level was directly
linked to the price level in the Sterling area. Together, these features of the policy regime meant
that inflation was negligible, and that money growth was on average only slightly greater than the
rate of growth of nominal GDP, thus allowing for a modest rate of monetization.
1 The anticipation of exchange controls, of course, contributed to the acceleration of thehemorrhage of the reserves.
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Figure 5
Source: International Financial Statistics
The nascent excess demand could be vented on imports only as long as there were foreign
exchange reserves. However, a sea change occurred in 1961. After many months of accelerating
decline of foreign exchange reserves,1 in July the exchange control net was drawn around Ghana
rather than the Sterling area, and in December of that year import licencing was introduced. (See
Figure 6.) In that same year, government exhausted its local currency bank balances, and started
borrowing from the banking system. This combination had several related effects on the macro
economy. First, monetary policy now became de facto independent of the sterling area. Excess
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issue of money would no longer result in capital movement. Second, the consequence of excess
issue of money would now be inflation. Third, the import licencing was intended not only to
restrict imports, but also to promote import-substitution, industrialization, and geographic
diversification of trade towards East-bloc countries. Fourth, as the excess demand for foreign
exchange became larger and larger, making the rents to recipients of licences correspondingly
larger, the inevitable corruption in the issue of licences emerged.
Figure 6
Source: International Financial Statistics
The first of these effects shows up in the monetary growth rate (Figure 5). The three year moving
average rate of money growth exceeded 10% in the first half of the 1960s. The initial effect of
this was to increase the Money/GDP ratio to over 15%. However, as has happened the world
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over, excess money balances were spent, and with the economy now closed, the second effect
emerged: CPI inflation rose to exceed 20% by 1965 (Figure 3).
The Bank of Ghana had increased the discount rate by half of one per cent in 1961 as part of the
package associated with the introduction of exchange controls. But with inflation accelerating,
the real interest rate became sharply negative (Figure 7). Both the private sector and the growing
band of state-owned enterprises now had the incentive to increase their borrowing from the
banking system, and the favored ones with access to credit responded accordingly.
Figure 7
Source: International Financial Statistics
1 An inflation tax arises from the decline in the real value of non-interest bearing moneyheld by the public. The tax rate, as a proportion of money balances, is the inflation rate divided by1 + the inflation rate. It is also useful to calculate the amount of the tax in value terms, andexpress that relative to GDP.
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This trend was exacerbated by official policy favoring the state-owned Ghana Commercial Bank
(GCB): all state-owned enterprises were expected to bank with GCB, and in 1961 financing of the
marketing of the cocoa crop was taken over by the GCB. In addition, the National Investment
Bank was set up in 1963, three quarters owned by government, which became a loan window to
funnel credit to favored sectors.
With the monetary system insulated from the rest of the world by exchange controls, it was
possible to collect an inflation tax.1 From an initial situation of no significant inflation tax, by
Nkrumah’s last year it reached over 3.4% of GDP. The public responds to any tax by reducing its
exposure to the tax -- in this case by reducing its holdings of money. Naturally this didn’t happen
immediately, and the incidence varied across agents in the economy. But respond the public did.
Despite the fact that money growth and inflation were both sharply reduced following Nkrumah’s
overthrow, and remained below 10% through the end of the Busia government, the public’s
holdings of money steadily declined until the next round of accelerating money supply and
subsequent inflation (Figure 8).
The decline in foreign exchange reserves understated the extent to which Ghana was living
beyond its means. A significant part of the import splurge had been financed by taking on short-
term debt. Two thirds of the debt outstanding in early 1966 was suppliers' credits and payments
arrears. (See Leith 1974, Table II-6.)
1 Cost information is from Killick (1978), p. 249.
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Figure 8
Source: International Financial Statistics
Not all of the debt was inappropriate. About 20% of the debt was long-tem, some of which had
been invested in high return projects. Among the successful projects must be counted the Volta
dam. It’s purpose was to generate large volumes of cheap electricity to fuel Ghana’s
industrialization. The principal anchor was an aluminum smelter, but Nkrumah’s ambitious
industrialization plans anticipated many other uses for the electricity. The dam itself cost the
equivalent of over 60% of a year’s merchandise export earnings, and was financed in part by
Ghana itself (41%), the World Bank (34%), and loans from the US and the UK governments
(25%).1 The presence of the World Bank proved to be an important agent of restraint on
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discretionary action by Ghana, which ensured the effective running of the project while the Bank’s
conditions remained in force.
Nkrumah’s legacy also included a sizable state-owned enterprise sector. The share of value added
in the state-owned sector reached one quarter of GDP in the mid 1960s. The share of
employment was even higher, largely because some state-owned activities were generating low,
and in some case even negative value added -- i.e., a value of output less than the value of
purchased inputs. Killick (1978) reports several measures of relative inefficiency of the state-
owned enterprises, which indicate low productivity, low profitability, and considerable
overstaffing.
Exchange Rate Policy
The Nkrumist rhetoric implicitly assumed that all demand and supply elasticities were close to
zero, and hence that relative prices did not matter. Consequently, there was virtually no policy
attention paid to relative prices in general, and to the exchange rate in particular. The neglect of
exchange rate policy may be seen clearly in Figure 9.
From 1956 through 1960 there was a modest fall in the real price of foreign exchange (real
appreciation of the currency), as excess demand was being met by drawing down foreign
exchange reserves, keeping Ghana's inflation only slightly greater than that of the major industrial
countries. With the tightening of exchange controls and import licencing in 1961, Ghanaian
inflation accelerated, while the exchange rate remained fixed. This yielded a sharp real
appreciation of the currency.
The changes in incentives due to real appreciation of the currency were substantial. On the export
side, even before allowing for increases in taxes on various exports, by 1965 the real exchange
rate was nearly 50% less than at independence. The response of exports was predictable: exports
dropped from about 30% of GDP at independence to less than 18% in 1965 (Figure 9). The fact
that a part of this effect was due to terms of trade deterioration may have obscured the
importance of the real exchange rate for export earnings. Whatever the reason for the failure of
policy makers to recognize the source of the problem, the deteriorating export performance was
serious. (See also Leith 1971.)
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Figure 9
Equally important incentive effects were emerging on the import side. With the volume and
composition of imports controlled by a system of import licencing, large rents attributable to
those licences emerged. Ghanaians learned quickly that rent-seeking had become far more
rewarding than any directly productive activity. Sometimes the rent-seeking consisted simply of
investing in favored import-substitution activities, where inputs could be imported cheaply and
competing imports were excluded. More seriously for the long-term, the rent-seeking also took
the form of corruption, a pattern which was to be repeated again and again.
Source: International Financial Statistics
The exchange rate-cum-import licencing policy contributed to the fiscal deterioration, which was
itself causing the real exchange rate deterioration. With the volume of imports/GDP dropping
(because the export/GDP ratio was falling and no further financing was available), and because
the composition of imports was increasingly biased towards low duty rated items which were
1 In different times the payment was made in currency and at other times by cheque. Ineither case, as a recipient of a large annual cash payment the producer was particularly vulnerableto the inflation tax.
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deemed “essentials” and therefore worthy of lower rates, import duties started to shrink, not only
relative to GDP, but also relative to other government revenue sources.
Cocoa Policy
Nkrumah's government had a highly ambivalent attitude towards cocoa. The peasant farmers,
responsible for the vast bulk of production, were not part of the urban-based statist constituency
that had put, and kept, Nkrumah in office. The world market was largely dominated by multi-
nationals, which Nkrumah deeply mistrusted, and the world price exhibited a high variance.
Government, therefore, had many reasons to ignore the cocoa interests in its policy formulation.
Yet in 1957 cocoa exports were both the most important export and the largest single source of
government revenues. Government could not, therefore, afford to mis-play its cocoa policy: but
it did.
The peasant farmers are located in several parts of the country, but largely in the inland regions
beyond the costal plain: Ashanti, Brong-Ahafo, Eastern, and Western regions, with smaller
volumes coming from Central and Volta regions, but not from the north. Cocoa is a tree crop,
which takes a number of years to mature. The pods are harvested, and preliminary processing in
the form of fermentation and drying of the beans, is done in the immediate growing area. The
dried beans are generally carried in headloads from the farm to the buying stations located on a
feeder road or rail line, where a producer price that varies by grade but which is usually fixed for
the crop year, is credited to the owner.1 From there the beans are shipped to the coast, and then
overseas, with some diverted to local processing.
At the turn of the century Ghana accounted for about 1% of total world production of cocoa
beans. Following a rapid expansion of production during the first two decades of the twentieth
century, Ghana became the largest single producer in the world. The 1920/21 crop year gave
Ghana a 32% share, which grew slightly over the next two decades, and remained in the mid-30%
range until the early 1960s. (See Amoah, Vols. 1, 1995, and 2, 1998, for detail on the cocoa
sector.)
1 The formal title of the Board changed over the years, and is now called the CocoaBoard. It was not until 1961 that the Nkrumah government established it as a single monopsonybuyer at the local level.
2 It should be noted, nevertheless, that over the longer term, as smuggling channels toneighboring countries developed, sales to the CMB began to decline more rapidly than the harvestof cocoa pods.
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The internal purchasing and external marketing of cocoa were handled by private firms prior to
World War II. With the war, the colonial government took over the purchase of cocoa and sold it
to the British food ministry. In 1947 this was replaced by the Cocoa Marketing Board (CMB),
which was given a monopsony position in purchase for export and monopoly in export marketing
from the Gold Coast.1 Initially the producer price paid by the CMB was determined by the world
price less a modest tax, with profits paid to government. However, as time passed, the nominal
producer price was fixed and kept at levels that yielded larger and larger shares to the CMB and
government.
As Nkrumah took the reins of the internal self-government in the early 1950s, the world price was
high by historical standards, due largely to the commodity price boom associated with the Korean
war. This permitted government, through the CMB, to set a relatively high producer price, which
encouraged a substantial expansion of Ghanaian capacity in the form of new plantings of trees.
As independence neared, world prices dropped, and so did the price paid by the CMB to
producers. However, once trees have been planted, the short-run supply response to a real price
fall is not large.2 Consequently, sales to the CMB grew dramatically, doubling from the early
1950s to the early 1960s, even as the real price paid to producers was falling, equally dramatically
(Figure 10). Much to the dismay of Nkrumah, this also depressed world cocoa prices, for at that
time Ghana had about one third of the world market. (See Figure 11.)
Again, the interaction of the excess demand and the exchange rate policies acted to amplify the
effect of another set of policies. In the cocoa case, the domestic inflation and the fixed nominal
producer price accelerated the decline in the real producer price. The effect on production, and
hence CMB purchases, was not immediate but, nevertheless, during Nkrumah’s later years
purchases began their long decline, both in absolute volume, and share of world production.
(Figure 11).
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Figure 10
Source: Cocoa Board, Accra
In addition, Ghana negotiated several bilateral trade pacts, mostly with other African and east-
European countries. This helped Ghana to diversify modestly its cocoa export market, but mostly
it simply created bilateral balances which Ghana found of little value in making its other external
payments. The USSR got the cocoa, and Ghana got a ruble balance.
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Figure 11
Sources: Amoah (1998) for share, International Financial Statistics for other.
The Nkrumah Legacy
The Nkrumah regime initiated the first failure – to maintain macro balance – and exacerbated the
effects by fixing the nominal prices of foreign exchange and cocoa. The returns to holders of
money, and export-earning assets such as cocoa trees and mineral deposits were thus altered
dramatically by the state. Even if those returns were subsequently restored to their initial rates,
the response would be tempered by the knowledge of the risks which experience had
demonstrated.
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The National Liberation Council
The leaders of the coup that ousted Nkrumah in early 1966 installed a government called the
National Liberation Council (NLC) which was heavily dominated by military officers. Several
justifications for the coup were offered, including the oppression of political critics, the corruption
of government officials, and economic mismanagement. The political system developed by
Nkrumah was dismantled, and a commission of enquiry into corruption was launched.
The most pressing economic problem facing the NLC on taking over from Nkrumah was the
balance of payments, for the foreign exchange reserves were slipping rapidly, in spite of continued
use of import-licencing and exchange controls. By the end of 1966 net foreign assets in the
monetary system were negative. Yet there was little recognition of the fact that the balance of
payments pressure arose fundamentally from excess demand due to loose fiscal and monetary
policies. Rather, the NLC blamed the problems facing the Ghanaian economy on the poor
management and corruption of the Nkrumah government. Government appeared to believe that it
was possible to construct a more equitable and carefully managed control system.
Fiscal and Monetary Policy
The NLC did cut total government spending in its first year (Figure 2), but this was largely the
product of slashing the capital budget, contributing to a marked decline in the gross investment to
GDP ratio throughout the NLC period (Figure 12). The NLC was able to negotiate a major
rescheduling of short-term debt, thus providing some immediate relief of both government’s
budgetary problems and pressure on the balance of international payments. Government revenue
also fell under the NLC, allowing the overall government budget deficit, to continue to run in
excess of 5% of GDP until 1969 when the deficit was reduced to 3.3 % of GDP. Some monetary
policy restraint was introduced, with the discount rate bumped from 4.5% to 7% in 1966. This
sharply reduced the rate of growth of the money supply, which contributed to a reduction of
inflation.
1 The food component of the CPI had a weight of more than 50%. The fall in therecorded index may also have been attributable to the NLC’s more vigorous enforcement of theprice control regulations.
-23-
Figure 12
Source: International Financial Statistics
The NLC was also the beneficiary of a considerable dose of good luck. Excellent weather
produced good food crops in 1966 and 1967, contributing to an absolute reduction in the CPI for
the latter year1 while the GDP deflator inflation was modestly positive.
Exchange Rate
It was soon clear, however, that a more drastic measure than modestly tighter fiscal and monetary
policies would be required -- devaluation. With a fixed nominal exchange rate, the cumulative
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inflation of the Nkrumah era had generated a significant real appreciation of the currency vis-a-vis
the major industrial countries. By 1966 the real price of foreign exchange had fallen to 50% of
the level at independence. This was having serious consequences for Ghana’s export
competitiveness, which in turn substantially depressed the share of exports in GDP (Figure 9).
Further, foreign exchange reserves had continued to slide, and private foreign investment was
increasingly concerned about the exchange rate risk.
In July 1967 the NLC finally decided to devalue. The official price of foreign exchange was
increased by about 43%. This, of course, was not enough to restore the real foreign exchange
price to the level of 1957: the average real exchange rate index for the following year was 75,
compared with the previous year of 50 (1957 = 100). But the devaluation was sufficient to
reverse the trend of exports relative to GDP, and to temporarily stop the decline of foreign
exchange reserves.
The devaluation package also included an increase in the fixed nominal producer price of cocoa,
and modest increases in the minimum wage (7.7%) and government wages (5%), plus a
commitment to liberalize import controls. This did in fact occur, as the ratio of imports to GDP
edged up.
Cocoa
The increase in the producer price of cocoa, announced as part of the devaluation package, was
30%, in contrast with the rise in the official price of foreign exchange of 43%. This was far from
sufficient to reverse the cumulative effect of many years of keeping the nominal increase in the
producer price of cocoa less than the inflation rate. Indeed, by not matching the devaluation,
government was, once again, taking a larger slice of the cocoa pie, and increasing its dependence
on cocoa revenue (Figures 10 and 13).
-25-
Figure 13
Source: Quarterly Digest of Statistics, Statistical Service, Accra
The NLC was also blessed by a major recovery of world cocoa prices, which had reached a
trough in 1965. The following year, the NLC’s first in power, world cocoa prices in real terms
increased by 38%, and a further 15% , 19%, and 22% (compounded) in each of the subsequent
years. The real price of cocoa in world markets for 1969, the year the NLC turned over power to
the elected Busia government, was significantly more than twice what it had been in 1965 (Figure
11).
Debt
At independence, Ghana had foreign exchange reserves of around $500 million while the external
debt was virtually non-existent. By the end of Nkrumah’s rule this situation had changed
-26-
dramatically. Reserves were nearly depleted and the external debt amounted to an estimated $790
million. (Leith, 1974, p. 29 converted at c/1.02/$). As noted, lavish government expenditure and
declining revenues in combination with an increasingly overvalued currency were mainly to blame
for this development. A certain amount of credit pushing also took place, supported by export
promoting agencies in the creditors’ countries (Hardy, 1982). Poor use of foreign capital,
compounded by excessive reliance on medium term financing – primarily suppliers credit –
aggravated the difficulties in servicing the debt and put severe pressure on the balance of
payments. Shortly after the NLC government took power, a major rescheduling of Ghana’s debt
was negotiated in 1966. This provided some temporary relief of both government's budgetary
problems and pressure on the balance of international payments. Two more reschedulings took
place in 1968 and 1970. By the end of 1971, the debt had been pared back to US$542.
The NLC Legacy
The National Liberation Council returned Ghana to democratic rule in 1969, but first carefully set
the stage. The new constitution re-established the position of Prime Minister as executive head of
government, while the role of President as head of state was more ceremonial.
The NLC had restored macroeconomic balance and some of the incentive to export, both of
which were important for future economic growth. Yet in the very act of the coup overthrowing
Nkrumah, the military created a dangerous precedent – that the power of the state could be
usurped on the decision of a few, however high-minded those few might be. In the hands of the
NLC that power did not prove damaging to economic growth, but the precedent would prove to
be.
-27-
The Busia Government
Elections in August 1969 were won with a substantial majority by the Progress Party, led by K.A.
Busia, with 59% of the votes and 75% of the seats. Busia’s Progress Party government took
office in October 1969, with great expectations for the restoration of a democratic system of
government. The overall economic record is mixed. Real GDP per capita continued the growth
that had resumed under the NLC. The Busia government was highly critical of the economic
management under Nkrumah, but there was not a comprehensive attempt to reverse the changes
that had been wrought by Nkrumah. Once again the confusion between poor policy and poor
administration as the source of economic troubles was evident.
Support for the Progress Party was centered primarily in the predominantly Akan-speaking
regions which were also the principal cocoa growing areas. (See Austin 1976.) Indeed, at one
time Busia had been active in the campaign for Ashanti secession. The opposition National
Alliance of Liberals (NAL), was led by K.A. Gbedemah, an Ewe from the Volta Region, and a
one-time lieutenant of Nkrumah who had later fled in the face of Nkrumah's suppression of all
dissent.
The government of Prime Minister Busia initiated some economic reforms, and modest economic
growth ensued. However, there were two major problems. First the contest over the political
system had not yet been resolved. Second, the Busia government mishandled the import
liberalization.
The fragility of the political system, not entirely appreciated at the time, was illustrated by a
number of early actions of the new government. The constituent assembly had included a clause
in the constitution barring criminals from office. The clause was written in such a way that it
could be applied to Gbedemah, who had been found by one of Nkrumah's enquires unable to
account for a small portion of his assets. Shortly after Gbedemah won his seat in the election, his
local opponent successfully launched legal action to unseat him. In a similar vein the government
moved in early 1970 to dismiss 568 public officers, most of whom were seen as having been
supporters of the opposition, and not one of whom was Akan.
1 A few SOEs were divested in 1966/67, but allegations of impropriety in the divestitureprocess remain to this day.
2 To provide some perspective, government revenue in 1969 was c/332million, and thevalue of gross output for the metal mining sector (which included bauxite and manganese mines aswell as a substantial private gold mine) was c/37.2 million.
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The precarious political balance was also reflected in the Busia government’s expulsion of large
numbers of aliens in late 1969. (See Austin 1976.) These were seen as depriving Ghanaians of
jobs, and were easy targets for a government seeking popular support early in its mandate.
Fiscal and Monetary Policies
The Progress Party committed to a gradual elimination of import licencing. To this end, the first
budget (August 1970) introduced a considerable liberalization of the list of items subject to
licencing, complemented by a differentiated scheme of surcharges on those imports not subject to
licencing. Further revisions to the details of the surcharges were made during 1971, with the
effect of increasing marginally the share of import duties in government revenues. Yet the
necessary condition for success in this venture -- an appropriate level of aggregate demand -- was
not enforced. The government budget deficit continued, albeit somewhat reduced in 1970, but
returning to 1969’s rate in 1971.
Monetary policy, as indicated by the discount rate, which had been eased somewhat under the
later years of the NLC, remained passive, continuing to yield a negative real interest rate. The
major impact on the monetary front was a further reduction of credit to government (relative to
GDP) that had begun under the NLC, while credit to the private sector grew rapidly in 1971.
State owned enterprises (SOEs), that had been built up by Nkrumah, had not been dismantled by
the NLC.1 The Busia government attempted some minor changes, but chose not to withdraw
government from the “commanding heights” of the economy. Thus, the SOEs continued to be a
drain on both the fiscus and productivity. Killick (1978, p. 219) reports data from the Auditor
General's Annual Reports indicating losses incurred by various enterprises amounting to over c/15
million in 1969-70, including a c/6.75 million loss for the State Gold Mining Corporation and c/2.85
million for Ghana Airways.2 He also shows substantially lower productivity in state-owned
enterprises. More seriously for the future, the Busia government's choice to retain a large number
of state-owned enterprises created a considerable opportunity for the distribution of rents in the
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political process, which plagued the economy in the next decade, and which would subsequently
form a significant drag in the reform program.
The 1971 budget of the PP government contained a response to the increasingly negative real
interest rates afflicting the financial system. Nominal interest rates were increased, but in doing so
the authorities continued the practice of regulating the interest rates that banks were to pay on
their deposits and charge on loans. Further, the spread between deposit and lending rates was
narrowed. This meant that the banks were caught in a bind between higher deposit rates and
regulated loan rates, forcing them to ration credit on some other basis. The Bank of Ghana’s
discount rate was also raised from 5.5% to 8%, but this still did not make the real rate facing the
commercial banks positive.
With no substantial tightening of either fiscal or monetary policy, the overall excess demand
pressure was not alleviated. This put in jeopardy the government’s liberalization of the import
licencing and exchange control regime, as foreign exchange reserves were falling, once again to
record low levels.
Cocoa
Despite the fact that the Busia government’s support came largely from regions of the country
where most of the cocoa was grown, the producer price of cocoa for the 1969/70 crop year was
not increased in real terms. At the same time, good weather yielded a good harvest and, crucially
for the balance of payments, world cocoa prices in 1969 continued to recover from the trough of
1965.
But the cocoa boom did not endure, and the liberalization of import licencing which was
predicated on the continuation of strong cocoa export earnings was not, therefore, sustainable. In
the absence of a substantial tightening of aggregate demand, the liberalization would have been
manageable only if world cocoa prices had remained at the 1969 peak. World prices fell during
1970, and again during 1971, leaving the real price for 1971 roughly half that of 1969 and export
earnings for 1971, about $100 million short. (See Leith 1974, p148.) This was not trivial, for it
1 The liberalization process was, however, becoming increasingly complex. For details,see Leith 1974.
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amounted to more than 25% of the previous year’s imports. Nevertheless, the budget presented to
Parliament in July 1971 continued with the import liberalization process.1
Exchange Rate
The task of dismantling the foreign exchange control system proved difficult. Liberalization of the
import licencing had begun following the 1967 devaluation, but taxes on imports were not
increased enough to compensate for the removal of licences. Further, aggregate demand pressure
was not constrained. Consequently, from 1969 to 1971, when export earnings declined marginally,
imports grew by 14%. Foreign exchange reserves fell to dangerously low levels. Something more
than the timid fiscal and monetary restraint was clearly required in order to restore some semblance
of external balance. In an effort to solve both its balance of payments problem and its fiscal deficit
problem, the Busia government decided on a very substantial devaluation from c/1.02 per US dollar
to c/1.82 per US dollar, which was announced on December 27, 1971. Since the US dollar had just
been devalued by about 8% the week before as part of the Smithsonian Agreement, the cumulative
devaluation was almost a doubling of the price of non-dollar currencies. (See Leith 1974.)
The package included abolition of several complicated surcharges on foreign exchange payments
and bonuses for non-traditional foreign exchange earners. In addition, the nominal producer prices
of cocoa, and other crops handled by the CMB, were increased by 25%, much less than the
increase in the price of foreign exchange. Since the cocoa export tax was steeply progressive in
nominal cedi terms, and since the government’s expenditure budget was already set in nominal cedi
terms, the combination would have significantly reduced the fiscal deficit.
For those with incomes fixed in cedis, but with heavy expenditures on imports, which included the
military, a devaluation of this magnitude meant a huge cut in real income. On January 13,1972
Ghana experienced another military coup.
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The Busia Legacy
The attempt by the Busia government to restore both macroeconomic balance and the incentive to
export could have set Ghana on a sustainable long-run growth path. Yet the attempt to obviate
that failure triggered an even more pernicious failure – the use of the state for the interests of the
few.
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The National Redemption Council/Supreme Military Council
Military officers the world over are not renowned for their grasp of the fundamentals of fiscal,
monetary and exchange rate policy. Colonel Acheampong, the leader of the coup, and his
colleagues were no exception to this rule. Calling themselves the National Redemption Council
(NRC), they proceeded to focus on an agenda that ignored even the most elementary economic
constraints on their ambitions.
Among its first acts, the NRC decreed: a revaluation of the Cedi; a return of control prices to their
pre-devaluation levels; a refusal to pay “unjust“ foreign loans that had been taken out by previous
civilian governments; and a fourfold increase in the minimum wage. The early NRC also launched
with great fanfare “Operation Feed Yourself,” to achieve national food self-sufficiency.
The NRC government evidently believed that an economy could be run in the same way as the
military -- by command rather than by incentive. In the early days this may have been simply
naivete, but as time passed, evidence mounted that implementation of the various decrees was not
happening. (See Chazan 1983.)
Under the NRC, the economy entered what turned out to be an extended period of considerable
instability, directly exacerbated by growth-retarding policies, and indirectly by acute corruption.
The full magnitude of the destructive policies was masked initially by an exceptional set of
circumstances in the world cocoa and gold markets. Ghana's cocoa export volume expanded to
the second highest level in the post World War II period, while the world cocoa price also
increased, contrary to the usually negative relationship between Ghana's export volume and world
price. As a result, cocoa export earnings in 1972 and 1973 boomed. Furthermore, another major
export, gold, was affected by an equally exceptional combination of events: the additional
devaluation of the US dollar in early 1973, and the freeing of the price of gold, which led to a two-
thirds increase in the dollar price of gold in 1973 and a further increase of nearly the same
proportion in 1974. These windfalls kept inflation under reasonable control in 1972 and 1973, and
saw Ghanaians enjoying the highest real per capita GDP in 1973 and 1974 that they have ever
seen, before or since. (See Figures 1 and 3.)
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Exchange Rate
Having seized power on the basis of the Busia government’s devaluation, the NRC immediately
decided to revalue the Cedi, from c/1.82/$ to c/1.28/$. The nominal exchange rate became a matter
of national pride for the NRC. Regardless of the amount of inflation, regardless of the adverse
economic consequences for the nation, and heedless even of its own narrow interests, the NRC
persistently refused to contemplate any devaluation of the Cedi. Even when the US dollar was
devalued in February 1973, the Cedi did not follow suit, and consequently appreciated further to
c/1.15/$.
Yet the exchange rate became the root of its problems. With a fixed exchange rate and
accelerating inflation, exports became increasingly uncompetitive, while the excess demand for
imports continued to mount. (See Figure 9.) Volumes of both cocoa and non-cocoa exports fell
precipitously. With less foreign exchange available for imports, the import licence premia and the
corruption associated with the system mounted.
It was not until 1978 that there was any further movement of the nominal exchange rate. In June
of that year “a more flexible exchange rate system,” under which “the exchange rate of the Cedi
against the US dollar would be adjusted to reflect the underlying economic, financial, and balance
of payments situation” was authorized. (IMF, AREA 1979, p. 177.) In June there was a 17.4%
depreciation, a further 8.1% in July, and 15.8% during August. Compared with the cumulative
inflation which had occurred over the years, the change was trivial.
Cocoa
The NRC government may have been lulled into a false sense of confidence by developments in the
cocoa market. Just as the previous military government had benefitted from a windfall in the world
cocoa market, so too did the NRC. In its first two years, both the world price and Ghana's export
volume increased. In 1974 cocoa export earnings in dollar terms exceeded the previous peak of
1970. This permitted the government to increase the nominal producer price in each of 1972 and
1973 by more than the CPI inflation. But the gap between the producer price and the world price
remained substantial.
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Monetary and Fiscal Policies
The underlying economic fundamentals were deteriorating. Budgetary limits on government
expenditures were often ignored, and various revenue raising measures were introduced but not
enforced. The budget deficit grew year after year, by 1976 reaching a record level of over 11% of
GDP. This was financed almost entirely from the domestic monetary system, and not by
international borrowing. The rapidly accelerating money growth did the same to inflation, pushing
CPI inflation to over 100% in 1977 (Figures 3 and 5).
In the face of that inflation, regulated nominal interest rates and exchange rates were kept fixed at
levels that bore no relationship to their true scarcity value. Both the real interest rate and the real
exchange rate plummeted. (Figures 7 and 9). Thus, those with favored access to credit (via either
the state-owned Ghana Commercial Bank or one of the specific government loan windows) and/or
imports (via the licencing system) could make fortunes simply on the basis of their favored access,
rather than from any directly productive activity.
Inflation, while caused in the first place by the government budget deficit, given the other
economic policies, contributed to a deterioration of government’s own revenue base. Real import
duty collections dropped as the volume and local currency value of imports declined due to the
lack of foreign exchange at the fixed nominal exchange rate, and as goods were increasingly
(mis)classified as low or duty free. Delays in collecting taxes became more pronounced and costly
in terms of real revenue foregone as inflation surged. By 1978 government revenue amounted to a
mere 7% of GDP. The increasing reliance on the inflation tax ate into the tax base – holdings of
currency and demand deposits. After peaking at 22% of GDP in 1976, money holdings began to
slide perceptibly as the public sought out and found other means to carry out transactions and store
value, such as barter and the use of foreign currencies (Figure 8).
With ever shrinking sources of funding, government expenditures also shrank (Figure 2).
Gross investment, which in the early years of independence had exceeded 20% of GDP, fell to
about 5% of GDP in 1979. (See Figure 12.) Both private and public investment lagged behind
even replacement rates, and routine maintenance lapsed, making the true depreciation even greater
than the reported depreciation of the capital stock. Symptomatic of the deteriorating situation was
the impairment of government’s ability to carry out even the most elementary functions. Roads,
schools, communications, and health facilities ceased to function in many parts of the country.
1 See Amnesty International, Annual Report, 1975-76. Mensah and his co-accused werereleased on appeal in June 1978 (Amnesty International, Annual Report, 1977-78).
-35-
The political fundamentals also worsened. The NRC had been designed as an alliance of the
military and bureaucracy, cutting out the politicians. The excising of the easily identified
politicians did not, however, eliminate internal opposition. Further, the leadership of the NRC
became increasingly arrogant and intolerant of any opposition. For example, J.H. Mensah, Busia’s
Minister of Finance, who had been detained following the coup, was re-arrested in September
1975 for circulating a pamphlet critical of the NRC’s economic policies. He was sentenced to 8
years in prison at hard labor.1
The military’s solution to the problem of the deteriorating economic and political situation was to
remove the non-military participants in the NRC, creating instead the Supreme Military Council
(SMC).
Debt
In keeping with the theme of self reliance promulgated by Acheampong on taking power, the early
NRC/SMC did not add to Ghana's foreign debt. However, the NRC government’s debt servicing
capacity deteriorated and it became clear that Ghana would not be able to honor its rescheduled
pre-1966 supplier’s credits, in addition to the regular debt service, when they were to fall due.
Hence, in 1974, the Paris Club took the, then highly unusual, decision to include a substantial grant
element by allowing Ghana to repay its entire previously consolidated debt over a 28 year period,
including an 11 year grant period at a 2.5 percent moratorium interest rate. According to Hardy
(1982), the financial effect of the rescheduling was equivalent to a 45 percent write-off of Ghana’s
nominal debt. While generous for the time, the rescheduling of the debt had no effect on either the
nominal exchange rate or the internal policies of the regime, thus allowing the currency to become
ever more overvalued. It did mean, however, that Ghana, in contrast with many developing
countries that had taken on enormous debt loads to cushion the shock of the OPEC oil price
increase, did not increase its debt. At the end of 1976 Ghana's debt was still less than at the
overthrow of Nkrumah a decade earlier (Figure 14).
-36-
Figure 14
Source: World Development Indicators.
Rent-Seeking
The architecture of the economic system, including exchange control, import licencing, and a large
state-owned enterprise sector, was fundamentally unchanged from the one built by Nkrumah, for it
was never fully dismantled by the NLC and Busia governments. Indeed, in December 1972 the
NRC government acquired by decree a 55% equity participation in foreign owned mining and
timber companies operating in Ghana, thereby extending the role of the state in the economy. This
was followed by nationalization of Ashanti Goldfields, the Volta Aluminium Company, and a
requirement that the majority of commercial bank shares be held by Ghanaians. These were
summed up in an “Indigenization Decree” in 1976. (See Chazan 1983.)
While the NRC/SMC government was proceeding as if it could ignore incentives and run the
economy by command, the military officers were themselves rapidly responding to the incentives
-37-
created by the economic system. The most important feature of the system was the enormous
discretionary economic clout it placed in the hands of officials, now mostly military officers.
Valuable rights could be acquired for far less than their true market value, and resold, thus
generating significant rents for the owner of the right. Those rents, in turn, were used both for
personal enrichment and to purchase political support for the regime. Rent creation and
distribution became the central feature of the NRC/SMC government.
As with Nkrumah, no attempt was made to deal with the fundamental sources of the economic
problems facing the nation. What was different about the NRC/SMC government, compared with
Nkrumah’s, was the extreme to which it pushed all the deleterious economic policies. The rent-
seeking thus generated was not simply a benign transfer of income to those in positions of power.
It was both a waste of resources, and a corrosive force within Ghanaian society. An ever-widening
circle of corruption displayed its venality for all to see, coercing more and more individuals into
participation as the price of survival. In the face of the increasingly hopeless situation, Ghanaians
sought out exit options. Those with internationally marketable human capital emigrated. Those
whose only option was to return to the land did so in a desperate bid to ensure that they would at
least be able to feed themselves.
General Akuffo
The political and economic direction of the SMC changed slightly in June 1978 when General
Akuffo forced General Acheampong to step aside, in the face of growing public unrest. The new
leader was evidently somewhat more willing to contemplate hitherto unthinkable policies. He
immediately ordered the release of fifty people, including senior members of the Busia and
Nkrumah governments, who had been detained in April for contesting the results of a referendum
held on a possible future form of government.
Following the first tentative steps towards a more “flexible” exchange rate policy begun in June, at
the end of August a substantial formal devaluation of the Cedi from c/1.69/$ to c/2.75/$ was taken.
While the cumulative change from June through to the end of August was the largest devaluation
ever undertaken to date by Ghana, the 139% increase in the price of foreign exchange did little
more than offset the previous year's CPI inflation, and did nothing to restore the real exchange rate
to an appropriate level (Figure 9). The nominal discount rate was also raised, but similarly by not
nearly enough to do what was necessary: the real discount rate remained below minus 30% (Figure
7).
-38-
Akuffo was rather more willing to take on external debt than Acheampong. By the end of 1979
the debt had almost doubled, reaching US$1.3 billion.
Akuffo did not put an end to arbitrary economic interventions, however. Large volumes of Cedi
banknotes had been smuggled out of the country to be exchanged in black markets in neighboring
countries, and more Cedi banknotes were being held outside banks. As a crude measure to reduce
the money supply and to tackle the externally held currency, in March 1979 a mandatory exchange
of old for new was carried out. Holdings of up to c/5,000 received 70% of their funds, and larger
holdings only 50%. Needless to say, such a measure was especially hard on peasant farmers who
received cash payments for their annual crops.
These measures did succeed in bringing down the money supply growth rate, and reduced the real
budget deficit the following year. But the fundamental problems of excess demand and regulated
prices of many key items remained. In other words, nothing fundamental was changed, including
the colossal corruption.
The political unrest continued. Finally General Akuffo put in place a plan to return government to
civilian hands, including elections scheduled for June 1979.
The NRC/SMC Legacy
Having taken power in pursuit of its own narrow interest, the military still had an interest in
maintaining a sound economy. As Olson (2000) has explained, a “stationary bandit’s” interest is in
a prosperous economy because his income is maximized when the national product is. Yet the
military failed to act in its own collective long-run interest. It allowed virtually unlimited access to
the rents of the control-cum-state-owned-enterprise-regime. The economic policies went well
beyond the optimum, shrinking the rent pool. And, as the political agitation grew, the horizon of
the military officers became ever shorter. (See Leith and Lofchie 1993.) In brief the state had
become a predator.
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The First Rawlings Intervention
Extraordinary events in May and June 1979 intruded before the elections were held. Growing
unrest, sparked by the generals’ attempt to grant themselves immunity from prosecution after they
left office, precipitated a mutiny in the lower ranks of the military. Under the leadership of Flight-
Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, a coup was attempted in May 1979. The coup failed, and the leader
was put on public trial. (See Yankah, 1986.) During the trial, Rawlings was eloquent in his
condemnation of the corruption brought upon the country by his superiors. This inspired a
successful mutiny by the lower ranks which then installed Rawlings as head of the Armed Forces
Revolutionary Council (AFRC).
The new government committed immediately to proceeding with the elections as scheduled, a
scant two weeks later, and to turning over power to the elected government three months later. It
honored those commitments, but from early June until late September the AFRC launched a
massive anti-corruption campaign that left a permanent imprint on the minds of all Ghanaians.
Goods and property allegedly acquired by corrupt means were seized, and alleged speculators and
hoarders were beaten or shot. The anti corruption campaign extended to the execution of a
number of generals, including the former heads of state Generals Afrifa (who had turned over
power to the elected Busia government), Acheampong, and Akuffo. The regime also attacked the
symptom of the high prices of essential commodities by burning the central Accra market. Notably,
nothing was done to tackle the underlying source of the problem.
The 1979 elections were won by the People’s National Party (PNP), with 71 out of 140 seats. The
PNP leader, Hilla Limann, had to face a run-off election for President, but won that handily. The
PNP, which had links with Nkrumah’s CPP, but was less ideological, successfully captured seats in
every region of the country. The two largest opposition parties, which between them won 55
seats, both had connections with the PP of Busia. (See Chazan, 1983; and Wiseman, 1990.)
1 One curious result of the combination of increasing the producer price while keeping theexchange rate fixed was that the producer price exceeded the world price, when converted at theofficial exchange rate. Yet the producer price was still well below what was necessary to restorethe coca sector to health.
-40-
The Limann Government
The inauguration of the Limann government in September 1979 provided some relief from the
chaotic rooting out of corruption. However, the government faced a daunting task: to restore the
institutions of civil society that had been set aside during more than seven years of increasingly
corrupt and autocratic military rule; to rejuvenate an economy that was collapsing; and to do this
with Rawlings watching from the wings. The government was clearly not up to the task. It did
nothing about the exchange rate or the abysmal state of infrastructure, both of which were
necessary for a successful resuscitation of agriculture. It dithered about taking IMF and World
Bank loans with the associated conditions. Inflation accelerated. Corruption continued, albeit on
a lesser scale than under Acheampong.
At the heart of the problem was the government’s unwillingness to tackle the fundamental
economic problem of excess demand. Government revenue, which Akuffo's SMC had brought up
to nearly 10% of GDP, once again dropped, sliding to less than 5% of GDP in 1981. This severely
constrained the government's ability to engage in even the most urgent restoration of the functions
of the state. Roads were impassible. Schools were without teachers, books or roofs. Clinics
were without staff or medicines. Monetary policy continued with the same nominal discount rate
that had been fixed by the SMC under Akuffo, and money supply growth was not brought under
control. CPI inflation, which had dropped to around 50%, rebounded to over 100% again in 1981.
But, with the much smaller monetary base, the inflation tax garnered just over 5% of GDP. The
nominal producer price of cocoa was increased in line with inflation, but the nominal exchange rate
was kept fixed at the rate set by Akuffo, making it appear impossible to grant any catch up for past
inflation.1 Investment continued its slide, dropping well below even a replacement rate. GDP per
capita continued to atrophy, falling below the level of 1950. All in all, the urgent need for
macroeconomic reform was not being met.
The ineptitude of the Limann government in dealing with the problem of excess demand and its
unwillingness to dismantle the underlying licencing-price-control-cum-state-owned-enterprise
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system, meant that shortages became even more severe, and hence the source of the corruption
remained entrenched in Ghanaian society.
Rawlings, who had issued a clear warning to Limann to meet expectations of Ghanaian society as
he stepped aside in September 1979, was forced to retire from the military. He remained in Accra,
however, keeping a wary eye on the government while publicly proclaiming the purpose of his
AFRC intervention. Eventually, on December 31, 1981, Rawlings led his second coup, installing
the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) while affirming that there must be a complete
revolution in Ghana.
1 In addition, support was canvassed from Libya, and the fast-fading Soviet Union, butlittle help materialized.
2 Quoted in Herbst 1993.
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The Early PNDC Government
The second Rawlings government, as with the first, was concerned primarily with the corruption
that had permeated Ghanaian society. Styling itself as the Provisional National Defense Council
(PNDC), the regime immediately began another housecleaning, following a populist Libyan
model.1 (See Agyeman-Duah 1987.) The approach was to establish People’s Defence Committees
(PDCs) in local communities, along with Workers’ Defence Committees (WDCs) at places of
employment. These challenged the authority of chiefs, managers, professionals, and even military
officers. Later in the year the local councils were placed under the PDCs/WDCs. District and
regional councils were re-constituted, to place them under grassroots control. A parallel system of
tribunals was also established during 1982. To tackle the ill-gotten wealth garnered under the old
regime, the largest denomination banknotes were recalled and exchanged for frozen bank deposits,
while bank deposits in excess of c/50,000 that could not be justified were confiscated. Market
women and farmers were forced to sell food at controlled prices. Such arbitrary actions
exacerbated the mistrust with which all economic agents – both corrupt and honest – viewed the
regime.
Despite the fact that Rawlings had come to rule a second time amidst considerable popular
approval, he was by no means securely in power. His tenuous hold was apparent in the traumatic
events of 1982. In June, four persons, including three senior judges, were kidnaped and murdered.
Two members of the PNDC were implicated. While one was tried and later executed, the public
revulsion at this alien political style was palpable. The Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference aptly
summed up the feeling which was widely felt:
“In the wake of the “revolution” atrocities of all sorts have been committed against
innocent civilians by some members of the armed forces and various groups purporting to
support the revolution. The wanton killings, senseless beatings, merciless molestation and
general harassment continue without the Government showing any willingness or ability to
do anything about them.”2
1 The official inflation figure for 1982 is considerably lower than that of 1981. However,in the chaotic atmosphere of 1982, it is dubious that the statistics reflect the true situation.
2 The number of persons affected is not known exactly. Estimates range from 600,000 to1,000,000 persons.
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With the economy and the state in shambles, no attention was paid to the underlying economic
reasons for the corruption and the failing economy or to the now very limited ability of the state to
carry out even the most elementary functions. Even as the economy was hitting new lows,
disastrous shocks to the economy were further exacerbating the situation. Severe food shortages
in the urban areas, due to the combination of attempts to control prices, even as inflation
continued,1 and the breakdown of the transportation system, were commonplace. These became
even more serious in 1982 as drought returned to West Africa with a vengeance. Forest fires
raged in the middle regions of the country, destroying vast sections of the forest where cocoa trees
grew. While this was happening, Nigeria chose to expel hundreds of thousands of Ghanaians who
were illegally living there, just as the Busia government had expelled Nigerians and other aliens in
1969.2 The task of reabsorbing these individuals placed enormous strain on an already crippled
Ghanaian economy and society.
It became clear to many in the PNDC that the actual path was not working -- both in political and
economic terms. In the third quarter of 1982 a special committee was struck to explore alternative
economic paths. The statist approach of Nkrumah, and the consequent rent-seeking associated
with the regimes of Acheampong, Akuffo and Limann, had produced economic atrophy and
corruption. Yet the populist approach was continuing the economic atrophy. This left room for
consideration of a third way -- an outward looking market-oriented approach. This held out the
genuine hope that the reforms would not simply increase GDP, but also address poverty and
eliminate rents for the corrupt.
It was in this context that the PNDC chose to launch a market oriented economic reform program
in the April 1983 budget. Work had commenced during 1982 to devise alternatives to both the
kleptocracy of the old regime and the populism of the early PNDC. Critically, both Rawlings and
his heretofore leftist Secretary for Finance and Economic Planning, Kwesi Botchwey, were
persuaded that a market oriented reform program was the only escape from the continued
downward spiral. Not all of the PNDC supporters were persuaded, for in November, as word of
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preparation of the alternative leaked, another coup was attempted. With the failure of that coup,
the fate of the radical populist economic strategy was also sealed.
The Legacy of the Early PNDC
The early PNDC government faced the monumental task of restoring the health of both the state
and the economy. The provocation of the Acheampong/Akuffo regime and the ineptitude of the
Limann government may have justified extreme measures. Yet in the process, the view of the state
and its agents as predators became firmly fixed in the minds of entrepreneurs. This would continue
to haunt the Rawlings led government, even as it restored macroeconomic balance and moved to
establish a modicum of democracy. Thus, the damage which the previous regimes, and the
populist phase of the PNDC, had inflicted on the economy, would remain for many years.
1 The leader of a small group of technocrats that designed the reform program was J.L.S.Abbey. For his reflections on the lessons, see Abbey (1989).
2 There is considerable evidence to suggest that smuggling of exports became substantial,even despite the much higher costs of moving goods clandestinely. See, for example Bulir(1998).
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2. The Economic Reform Program
Setting for The Reform ProgramRawlings saw corruption destroying Ghanaian society. Having failed in his attempt to eradicatethe corruption by force, with a precarious hold on power, and a feeble state apparatus, Rawlingshad few alternatives in his quest for reform. Yet in adopting the Economic Reform Program(ERP), with the support of the IMF and the World Bank and their emphasis on freeing upmarkets and eliminating the government budget deficit, he embraced an approach that hadbecome anathema to many in the third world for its alleged association with severe socialhardship. But Ghana in 1983 was different.
What was different? Most of the adjustments which an IMF program would impose had alreadytaken place. Government expenditure (at 11% of GDP) had shrunk to the point that the state wasunable to perform the most elementary functions, and public sector wages had long failed to keepup with inflation. Many state-owned enterprises had become mere shells, unable to obtain rawmaterials or cash to pay employees. Domestic prices of importables, and easily smuggledexportables, had already risen to reflect the scarcity value of foreign exchange. But governmentrevenue from foreign trade had not kept pace, because the official nominal exchange rate wasused to calculate the duties. The index of the real official exchange rate stood at a mere 7% of itsvalue at independence. It was obvious to Rawlings and his advisers1 that producers ofexportables had responded to the real incentives facing them. Production of the two major exportcommodities, cocoa and minerals, had dropped to less than half of the level during Busia’sadministration, and the value of exports (through legal channels)2 now amounted to a puny 5% ofGDP, reflecting the fact that non-traditional exports had become uncompetitive in world markets. A reform program that raised the price of foreign exchange to its scarcity value, and balanced thegovernment budget, need not engender serious social hardship, while holding out the promise ofreversing the long descent of the Ghanaian economy.
Subsequent Evolution of ReformsThe reform program was launched by an authoritarian government that had seized power by forceof arms, and was prepared to use that force to retain power. Members of the small inner circle ofeconomic policy decision-makers were convinced of the importance of maintaining a disciplinedapproach to sustain the Economic Reform Program in the face of both internal and externalconstraints. The PNDC government (1982 through 1992) was thus relatively insulated frominterest group pressures – relative to western style democratic regimes and relative to thesubsequent Ghanaian democratic regime.
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Some sensitivity to various interests must have remained, nevertheless. Two facts suggest thisinterpretation. First, most of the reforms that the PNDC chose to institute in the first few years ofthe ERP were easily implemented, both politically and administratively. Prior adjustment meantthat the reforms had little effect on relative prices, making the changes easier in political terms. (See Leith and Lofchie 1993, and Kanbur 1995.) Abandoning a complex rationing system infavor of a market based system meant that the reforms reduced the strain on an alreadyoverburdened administrative system. Second, several politically sensitive and administrativelycomplex reforms were left incomplete, including the cocoa sector, state-owned enterprises, and,critically, effective tax collection and expenditure control systems for government. The failure tocomplete these before the return to electoral competition in 1992 left the economic reformsvulnerable to the vagaries of electoral competition, in contrast with an authoritarian government.
The resumption of electoral competition in 1992 marked a fundamental change in the politicaleconomy of Ghana. With elections in view, Rawlings and his party were now subject to theprospective discipline of the electorate. This considerably shortened the time horizon of thegovernment, and made attention to the demands of different interests much more immediate. Further, a key member of the inner circle, Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, PNDC Secretary for Financeand Economic Planning, left government in March 1992.
With this background, we now turn to review the major elements of the reform program, from itslaunch in 1983 through the late 1990s.
3 Throughout we use the 1957 real exchange rate of the Cedi/SDR as a convenientbenchmark. It should be note, however, that comparisons extending over decades cannot take theoriginal base value to be necessarily the ideal. There are two important reasons for this caution.
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Exchange Rate Reforms
From Fixed to Market Exchange RateThe first step in the reform program was to break the taboo that associated devaluation withgovernment overthrow. An imaginative scheme of export bonuses financed by import surchargeswas the start in April 1983. This raised the official nominal effective exchange rate from c/2.75/$which Akuffo had set, to an average of about /c25/$, roughly offsetting the cumulative inflationfrom 1978 through 1983, without creating a budgetary drain on government. Yet this solutionhad two major problems associated with it. First, the scheme constituted a multiple exchangerate, which is classified by the IMF as a cardinal sin. Such an arrangement could not be retainedas a permanent feature of an IMF-supported program. Second, the government was severelyconstrained in its ability to carry out any reforms that required competent administration, and thescheme was intensive in administration. Consequently, later in 1983 the scheme was abolished,and replaced by a unified rate of c/30/$.
The new fixed exchange rate of c/30/$ was clearly much more competitive than before the reformprogram had been launched, but it was still less competitive than the real rate prevailing in thelate 1970s. A more aggressive increase in the real price of foreign exchange was required. InMarch, August, and November of 1984 further devaluations were introduced, taking theexchange rate to c/50/$ at year end, restoring the real exchange rate to about the level achievedimmediately following Akuffo’s devaluation of 1978. The same approach of periodicdevaluations was followed in 1985 and early 1986, taking the exchange rate to c/90/$ on January13, 1986. With inflation substantially less than these exchange rate changes (and declining) thisrepresented a further real depreciation.
Yet this approach was again starting to generate the same sort of negative political reactions thatprevious governments had experienced. A discrete action had to be taken each time, and nowthat most of the rents had been removed from the system, there was a pass-through to domesticprices of importables following each devaluation. To depoliticize the exchange rate setting, aweekly auction system was introduced in September 1986. At first this involved areintroduction of a dual exchange rate, as not all transactions through the official banking systemwere eligible to obtain foreign exchange through the auction. However, in February 1987 therate was unified at the auction rate.
These moves were successful in propelling the real exchange rate to a more competitive level. The real Cedi/SDR exchange rate average for 1987 reached a level roughly comparable to that of1968, the first full year following the 1967 devaluation. Yet this was still roughly only three-quarters of the real exchange rate at independence (Figure 9). More remained to be done.3
First, the initial value may not have been an equilibrium. Second, the various series may notcapture all important elements of the changes that take place.
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Figure 15
From the time Nkrumah imposed exchange controls in 1961, a black market on foreign exchangehad developed. Information on rates in this market is inherently impressionistic, with numbersreported by unknown informants reflecting unknowable volumes of transactions. Nevertheless,the very fact that a black market exists indicates that some desired transactions are not beingaccommodated through the officially sanctioned markets. The premium that black marketforeign exchange was earning had grown under Nkrumah, subsided under the NLC and Busia,grown again under the military and Limann, and exploded during the early PNDC government(Figure 15). The exchange market reforms just noted had dramatically reduced the black marketpremium. But nevertheless, a premium remained.
Sources: 1960 to 1984 from Wood (1988); after 1984: African Development Indicators.
The auction system was run by the Bank of Ghana, which gave rise to suspicions that the ratewas subject to some manipulation. In retrospect, the monthly average of the auction rates from
4 It was not entirely complete, however, for cocoa receipts continued to be channeledthrough the central bank, which then had a source of foreign exchange to use to intervene in themarket.
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early 1989 through early 1992 shows a remarkably smooth progression. A major step towardsfreeing up the foreign exchange market occurred in 1990, when an inter-bank market was set upto handle wholesale transactions in foreign exchange. This was run in parallel with the auctionsuntil 1992 when the auction window was closed. With this move, the transition to a more
transparent, market determined, exchange rate was largely complete.4 The steep recovery of thereal exchange rate stopped, however. The average real exchange rates for the years 1988 through1991 all fluctuated in the range of 77% to 83% of the rate at independence.
The very existence of a black market implied some corruption and therefore, in the eyes of thePNDC, justified an attack. In keeping with the thrust of the reform program, the ingenioussolution was to legalize the black market in the form of officially sanctioned, but privatelyoperated, foreign exchange bureaus. From February 1988 onwards, these have functioned, freelybuying and selling foreign exchange, mostly cash, on a “no questions asked” basis. Initially therewas a modest premium over the official auction rate, but gradually by the end of 1992 the tworates had largely converged, except for a small premium reflecting the retail nature of the bureautransactions (Figure 16).
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Figure 16
Source: Bank of Ghana
By the time Rawlings put himself forward as a candidate for election to President in 1992, amarket-determined exchange rate had become widely accepted in Ghana. A substantialconstituency now benefitted from a competitive real exchange rate, and was well aware of thatfact. Any attempt by a future government to suppress the market in foreign exchange wouldinevitably have to deal with a thriving market with large numbers of participants now familiarwith the market details. In other words, it would be much harder for any future government toresume foreign exchange rationing than it had been for Nkrumah to introduce it in the first placeand for his successors of various political stripes to retain it.
Foreign Exchange Policy Under Elected GovernmentThe return to electoral politics in 1992 not only affected government, but it also bore on theforeign exchange market, both directly, and indirectly. The expanding government budget deficitand acceleration of inflation spilled over into expectations of rapid depreciation of the Cedi in the
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foreign exchange market. This became a self-fulfilling prophesy, as the real exchange ratedepreciated rapidly. From 1991 to 1994 the real exchange rate of the Cedi vis-a-vis the SDRdepreciated by 60%. This doubtless stimulated the growth of exports, which reached shares ofGDP similar to the early 1960s (before exchange controls had started to bite). Yet the rapiddepreciation of the real exchange rate appears to have had little dampening effect on imports(Figure 9). In part this was attributable to the substantial financing of government’s budget bytransfers from foreign donors and foreign borrowing (Figure 17). As a result, the imports to GDPratio moved from 25% in 1991 to 38% in 1997.
A major reversal of exchange rate policy appears to have taken place in 1995, as the Cediappreciated markedly in real terms during 1995 through 1998, returning the real index to thelevel that had prevailed on average during 1992. It appears that the authorities, faced with ajump of inflation to over 70% in 1995, attempted to dampen inflationary expectations byjawboning foreign exchange dealers into slowing the rate of nominal depreciation. But to theextent that some individuals’ demands for foreign exchange were no longer being met in theinterbank foreign exchange market and the forex bureau market, the incentive to turn to a curbmarket reappeared.
While inflationary expectations may have been dampened by the exchange rate strategy, signalson other dimensions of policy were inconsistent. For example, a competitive and stable realexchange rate is fundamental to an export oriented long term growth strategy. With thesignificant real appreciation from 1995 to 1999, potential exporters could no longer rely on suchan incentive.
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Figure 17
Source: International Financial Statistics
The combination of a substantial fiscal deficit, financed by monetary expansion and foreignborrowing, while keeping the rate of nominal depreciation of the Cedi markedly less than the rateof inflation, created an unsustainable balance of payments situation. Eventually, the exchangerate had to give. The interbank rate depreciated in nominal terms by over 40% during 1999,while inflation was expected to run at 12%. The real exchange rate was thus restored to a levelcomparable to 1995. But the high variance of the real exchange rate over the 1990s increased therisk facing both the export and import-competing sectors, and thereby reduced the incentive
effect of the high real exchange rate index.
1 The exchange rate effect was not entirely positive for government, as some of itsobligations were either implicitly or explicitly denominated in foreign exchange.
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Fiscal Reforms
The Early ReformsA key condition associated with IMF and World Bank support for the reform program was abalancing of the government budget. This was accomplished in relatively short order – by 1986 –largely on the basis of a substantial increase in revenues. From 5.6% of GDP in Limann's lastyear, revenues grew to 13.6% by 1986. This, in turn, permitted the PNDC government to expandgovernment expenditure to over 13% of GDP (Figure 2).
The improved government revenue picture arose from a combination of exchange rate reform andtax reform. The former followed from the fact that by adjusting the exchange rate from c/2.75/$ inearly 1983 to c/90/$ at the beginning of 1986, the base for all trade taxes such as import andexport duties was augmented by over 30 fold, even before allowing for the effect of expanding thevolume of exports and hence imports on the share of trade in the economy. Some of the reformwas to reduce and simplify the customs tariff. These changes all together approximately tripledimport duty collections as a % of GDP.1
Other revenue sources were expanded dramatically by reforming tax administration (Figure 18). The Internal Revenue Service and the Customs Service were both removed from the civil serviceand placed under the supervision of a National Revenue Secretariat. This permitted arationalization of the incentive system and hence recruitment of professionals. Specialenforcement units were set up. Various innovative arrangements were made with associations. For example, the taxi drivers' association collects a daily tax from its members, and afterdeducting a commission, which it uses to finance its operations, turns over the revenues togovernment. The members prefer to pay daily out of their cash flow, rather than in larger lumpsums, and they prefer to deal with their own collectors rather than be shaken down by bureaucratsor tax police.
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Figure 18
Source: Ghana Statistical service, Quarterly Digest of Statistics
Retreat From Fiscal DisciplineThe major efforts made over the period from 1983 to restore fiscal and monetary disciplinestarted to flag in 1992, with the run up to the democratic elections of that year. In early 1992 thestance of fiscal and monetary policies became decidedly expansionary. The government budgetdeficit jumped from a surplus of 1.6% of GDP in 1991 to a deficit of over 5% of GDP in 1992. This turn around was composed mostly of a jump in expenditure (by nearly 4% of GDP), with adrop in revenues, including a fall in receipts from privatization, accounting for the rest.
If this had been a once off event, it might have been tolerable. However, in retrospect it was aclear break in government’s economic discipline, which had shown a modest budget surplus ineach of the years 1986 through 1991. Government expenditures continued to grow rapidly,
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surpassing Nkrumah’s most lavish year (1965 at 25.8% of GDP) in 1994, and remained above thatmark. Government scrambled to find ways of financing the growing expenditure. For example,an increase in the tax on petroleum was proposed to Parliament in 1993, but was not approved.
The inability of the tax system to augment its share of GDP in line with the expenditure growthleft a chronic deficit to be financed somehow. The choices for financing of the deficit boileddown to some combination of: (1) borrowing from the central bank (effectively printing money);(2) borrowing from the public; (3) borrowing from abroad; and (4) selling off state ownedenterprises. Financing the deficit by borrowing from the central bank inevitably pushed up thegrowth of money -- from the modest growth rates hovering around 10% for 1990 and 1991 toover 50% in 1992. An increase in the central bank’s discount rate was insufficient to offset theinflationary pressure: CPI inflation surged, and the current account deficit opened to 9.9% ofGDP in 1993.
In subsequent years government was able to augment tax revenues, but revenues never caught upto the growing expenditures. Indeed, the anticipation of elections in late 1996 brought anothersurge of government expenditure and net lending, reaching one third of GDP. To help improvetax administration and to finance government’s ambitious expenditure program, a value added tax(VAT) was introduced in early 1995 to replace a manufacturers’ sales tax that the Nkrumahgovernment had introduced on a much narrower base. However, the political sensitivity ofparliament, and some administrative teething problems, led to a weak public education program,which doomed the tax. (See Terkper 1996.) Following several protest riots, it was withdrawntwo months after it was introduced, leaving government with an even wider gap between revenueand expenditures in the coming election year, 1996, amounting to 10.4% of GDP.
After the 1996 elections, it was possible to revisit the issue of a VAT, and finally in 1998 the VATwas reintroduced. The second time round, with the opposition seated in parliament, there waswider consultation and a better education program. Further, a lower rate was set, at 10% ratherthan the 17.5% rate which had been attempted initially. This blunted opposition, and discouragednon-compliance. While the net effect of dropping the sales tax and introducing the VAT has notincreased government revenues directly, the improved record keeping associated with the VATappears to be enhancing compliance with the income tax.
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Figure 19
Source: International Financial Statistics
In addition to central bank financing of the deficit, government found that it had to turnincreasingly to the public via Treasury bills. Real interest rates on T-bills, which had been runningat modestly negative real interest rates from 1986 through 1990, became positive in 1991, andexcept for the inflationary spike of 1995, have remained positive ever since in order to attract thenecessary funds (Figure 19). This strategy, of course, risked crowding out potential privatesector borrowers of funds in the capital market.
The third possible source of financing the government budget deficit -- borrowing from abroad --came into play in a major way from 1994 onwards. Government borrowing from abroadincreased to 4.8% of GDP in 1994, and through 1997 remained well in excess of 3% (Figure 20).
2 The data on divestiture proceeds and changes in arrears cover the period from 1990only. Although a few state owned enterprises were disposed of in the years following theoverthrow of Nkrumah, there are no systematic data covering the proceeds from such sales.
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Figure 20
This served to highlight the growing problem of the build up of external debt, and the associatedcost of servicing it. (See discussion of debt below.)
Source: International Financial Statistics
In addition to the traditional avenues of formally borrowing funds, government began to run uparrears in payment of some of its bills internally. Although not substantial relative to othersources, such a practice was indicative of a lack of internal financial controls. More importantquantitatively, government received significant funds from the divestiture of sate-ownedenterprises, starting in 1993 at 2.2% of GDP, jumping to 5.2% in 1994, and falling back to 1.4%in each of 1995 and 1996.2 Had these assets not been sold, the size of the government deficit to
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be covered by borrowing, either internally or externally, would have averaged close to 10% of GDP
during 1994 through 1997. This gap between government spending and taxation revenue was similar to
the average during Acheampong’s most profligate years. Clearly the unwillingness to limit government
spending to ifs taxation and grant revenues was unsustainable, placing the entire reform program in
jeopardy.
Foreign DebtRawlings had inherited an economy in shambles, but an excessive foreign debt was not one of the
problems. Nkrumah had drawn down the accumulated foreign exchange reserves, and borrowed both
long term to finance the massive Volta River project, and short term to cover a growing shortage of
foreign exchange. After a series of rescheduling, one of which had a substantial grant element (see
Chapter 1), the debt was brought to a moderate level where it remained during the rune of Acheampong.
It was only after the departure of Acheampong that the military government took on additional debt.
Initially Rawlings did not increase the debt. This is scarcely surprising, given the radical populist stance
of the PNDC in ifs first year in office, which would not have endeared the government to potential
lenders. However, as part of the reform program the PNDC government took on additional foreign
debt. Foreign governments and in particular multilateral agencies were ready to finance new projects in
Ghana. As Table 1 shows, the share of multilateral debt to total debt increased from just over 20 per
cent at the outset of the ERP to over half in 1997. From the launch of the reform program in 1983 to the
end of 1997, the external debt almost quadrupled in dollar terms.
Given the relatively low level of debt to begin with, and the desperate need to restore essential
infrastructure, the initial increases in the debt were amply justified. Nevertheless, the increase in
the debt to GNP ratio from 41 percent in 1983 to 89 percent in 1997 is a cause for concern.
Relative to some of the seriously indebted African countries, such as neighboring Côte d'Ivoire or
Zambia, this may still not be in the excessive category (Figure 21). Yet annual debt service has
become a significant first claim on export earnings. Debt service as a ratio of exports increased
rapidly from less than 10 percent in the 1970s to over half at the end of the 1980s (Figures 22 and
23). A large part of this was due to the fact that substantial amounts of relatively short term IMF
loans taken at the beginning of the ERP fell due. IMF repurchases and charges represented over
50 per cent of total debt service in 1987-89. This number subsequently fell, bringing down the
debt service to exports ratio significantly. This was further helped by three reschedulings in 1987,
1 Different sources of data on debt report different numbers. The longest time series isavailable from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators. However, the IMF 1999 andCEPA 1999 both report higher figures. The data reported by CEPA 1999 are also shown inFigure 23.
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Figure 22
1991 and 1996. Annual debt service is now running between 25% and 30% of exports of goods
and services.1
Source: World Development Indicators
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Figure 23
Sources: World Development Indicators and Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA)
1 See Joseph 1999b, or Andrews et al. 2000, for more information on the HIPC and theCologne initiative.
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This improvement notwithstanding, such a level of debt service to exports is still considerable –
to the point that it is highly questionable whether it can be maintained in the long run. Ghana did
not qualify for the initial Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative in 1996, as the country
was not considered to have an unsustainable debt burden according to the criteria defined by that
initiative. However, as the criteria were relaxed at the Cologne summit in 1999, Ghana’s debt did
fall into the unsustainable category (Table 2).1 Note also that on the basis of the debt service to
export ratio alone, Ghana would have qualified already for the initial HIPC initiative. The fact that
Ghana’s debt is regarded as unsustainable by such widely accepted criteria as the ones set out by
the Cologne initiative indicates that debt is becoming a matter of serious concern for the country.
Table 2:
Measures of Debt Sustainability
NPV Debt/Exports
(%, in 1999)1
Debt Service/Exports
(%, in 1997)2
Level in Ghana 175 29.5Sustainable level according to initial HIPC 200-250 20-25Sustainable level according to Cologne initiative 150 unchanged
Source: Joseph (1999b).
Notes: 11999 corresponds to Ghana’s point of decision. 2Last available.
NPV is Net Present Value.
1 See Sowa (1996) re the sources of inflation during the early years of the reformprogram.
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Monetary and Financial System Reforms
Money and Inflation
It proved to be even more difficult to achieve monetary stability than fiscal balance. Several
elements were involved. The public’s willingness to hold money had been sharply reduced first
by the previous decade’s inflation, and then by the arbitrary confiscations of monetary assets of
1979 and 1982. Although the money to GDP ratio did show a modest rising trend after 1983, the
public remained leery of holding substantially larger balances in either cash or bank deposits, for
fear of a repeat of past experience (Figure 8). A similar picture is evident when looking at the
M2/GDP ratio (Figure 24). Moreover, although the ratio has improved since the mid 1980s –
contrary to trend of the Sub-Saharan average – it remains more than five percentage points
below the average for the continent. And, a high ratio of narrow to broad money persisted. In
1984, M1 accounted for 84 per cent of broad money.
These numbers suggests that the public would hold money only as necessary to finance
transactions, and not as a store of value. Indeed, inflation continued at unacceptable rates for
most of the rest of the decade: after the 122% rate in 1983, CPI inflation ran between 20% and
40% in every year except 1985, when good crops kept the CPI inflation to 10%.1
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Figure 24
Source: International Financial Statistics
Note: Data for Sub-Saharan Africa are unweighted averages
Over the first few years of the ERP, monetary growth was kept in check largely because
government was no longer drawing large volumes of credit from the monetary system. At the
same time foreign monetary assets were drawn down, while growth of credit to the private and
parastatal sector was kept in check by credit ceilings (Figure 4). Various quantitative regulations
were gradually abandoned during the late 1980s, but the monetary authorities had not yet
developed market based systems to replace the regulations. This made it difficult to sterilize the
inflow of foreign assistance, leaving renewed evidence of excess demand in 1989 and 1990
(Figure 3). From late 1989 on, the Bank of Ghana started to actively absorb excess liquidity by
open market operations. Eventually this had the desired effect, reducing inflation in both 1991
and 1992 (to about 10%). However, the central bank’s own discount rate, which had been raised
steadily from 10% in 1982 to over 30% in 1990, was not kept in line with inflation, and thus
1 See Kapur et al. re the fiscal and monetary reforms to 1991.
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remained strongly negative in real terms.1
Financial Institutions at the Launch of the ERP
The financial institutions themselves were not in a healthy state. The heavy influence of the
government had resulted in a financial system which was characterised by its shallowness,
inefficiency, lack of competition, and a high proportion of non-performing loans. This meant
that the financial sector was not playing the critical roles of mobilizing savings, evaluating
innovations, and channelling additional resources to profitable new activities.
The structure and level of nominal interest rates were entirely determined by regulation. The
Bank of Ghana (BOG) employed a system of minimum savings rates, combined with maximum
and differentiated sectoral lending rates. The priority sectors -- agriculture, manufacturing and
exports -- received credits at lower interest rates. In some cases, lending rates to priority sectors
were lower than the minimum rates on savings deposits. Moreover, no concern was shown for
risk, with preferential rates being accorded to such risky sectors as agriculture. In addition to the
dirigiste stance on levels of interest rates, the BOG had guidelines for credit allocation according
to sector, directing credits towards priority sectors. This bias of credits towards high risk sectors
was further compounded by loans being directed towards SOEs within sectors.
Sectoral credit ceilings and the differentiated sectoral interest rates left the banks holding excess
liquidity. Rather than lend to high risk sectors such as agriculture, the banks responded to the
minimum lending requirements by holding funds in liquid assets that far exceeded their liquid
asset requirements. Occasionally, banks even turned away potential depositors or refused to pay
interest on deposits over a certain amount. Savings were also discouraged by nominal interest
rates consistently falling below the level of inflation. Figure 19 shows that real interest rates for
savings deposits have been highly volatile and negative since 1975 with the only exceptions of
four non consecutive years.
From the days of Acheampong, the commercial banks all had a substantial state shareholding,
and the bulk of their loan books were to state-owned enterprises, many of which were effectively
bankrupt -- some before the reform program, and many more after its launch. The heavy state-
control had implied that banks to a large extent had become instruments for channelling funds to
1 In reality, the phases overlap somewhat. In particular, the improvements of bankingregulations still continue.
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highly inefficient and corrupt state-owned enterprises, and to some extent – prior to Rawlings’
entry on the scene – to private companies with ties to the government. During the Acheampong
regime, loans were granted by military officers and the banks had no choice other than to
comply. Government intervention continued after the fall of the military. In 1982, 92 per cent of
bank credits outstanding were to the public sector (Sheng and Tannor, 1996). In other words, the
bulk of loans had been extended on political grounds and not on any business criteria.
The financial sector was not performing its fundamental functions of mobilizing savings,
evaluating investment opportunities, and facilitating the reallocation of resources from low
productivity activities to higher productivity ones. Indeed, rather than adding value, the system
was subtracting value, as funds that were repeatedly allocated to activities that could not service
their loans. Non performing assets accumulated, amounting to as much as 41 per cent of total
credit in 1989 (IMF, 1999).
The reforms and transformation of the formal financial sector
The reforms of the financial sector were not part of the initial efforts to restore the economy in
Ghana in the 1980s. Before embarking on a project to clean up the financial system, the
macroeconomic situation -- in particular with regard to the weak discipline of the fiscal and
monetary policies -- had to be improved. However, during the 1983-88 period, the banks’
balance sheets continued to deteriorate, with mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) and weak
mobilization of deposits rendering all public banks insolvent. The banking system was in crisis
and jeopardizing the economic recovery triggered by the ERP.
The financial sector reforms were carried out in three phases:1 liberalization of interest rates and
credit allocation (1987-88), prudential regulations and a major clean-up of the bank’s balance
sheets, in particular with regard to non performing assets (1989-91), and finally attempts to
promote structural change through divestiture and other incentives to bring in private capital
(1992-present).
In 1987 the Ghanaian authorities began the financial reforms by gradually liberalizing interest
rates. Sectoral credit ceilings were removed the following year. This was accompanied by the
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liberalization of the foreign exchange market and the establishment of forex bureaux. In 1989, a
far-reaching Financial Sector Adjustment Program (FINSAP) was initiated, financed by the
World Bank and the IMF with co-financing from Japan and Switzerland among others. The
FINSAP was divided into three programs: FINSAP-1 (1989-91) aimed at reviewing the legal and
regulatory environment in the banking sector, restructuring banks in order to make them viable
and more efficient and revitalizing the financial sector in general. FINSAP-2 (1992-95) and
FINSAP-3 (beginning in 1995) sought to continue and reinforce the restructuring by creating
new institutions and decreasing the role of government in the financial sector. Financing for
further reform will in part fall under the more general ESAF loan, approved for 1999-2001.
One of the main features of FINSAP-1, was the amendment of banking acts and laws. Prior to
the reforms, there were no uniform guidelines as to how to account for non-performing loans,
making it difficult to properly assess the balance sheets of banks. Moreover, the Banking Act of
1970 did not provide for any capital adequacy ratio and allowed for high concentration of
portfolio risks. Penalties for infringing the banking laws had not been adjusted for inflation,
which severely limited its deterring effect. Furthermore, the BOG had concentrated its
supervision efforts on ensuring compliance with credit ceilings rather than on the quality of the
banks’ assets. The Bank Examination Department (BED) of the BOG was understaffed and
poorly trained. The 1989 Banking Act gave the BOG powers to request information, set rules for
liquidity requirements, impose lending policies and to levy fines for banks not complying with
the law. In addition, a major training program was implemented for bank supervisors and
material resources as well as personnel were increased. In 1992, the Bank of Ghana Law was
revised and implemented, giving the central bank increased powers in terms of banking
supervision. The BOG is now in a position to act strongly and swiftly to deal with distressed
banks. The commercial banks now work closely with the BOG on supervision issues and several
interviewees considered the banking supervision to function well.
As long as credit was allocated by decree, and not by evaluation of creditworthiness of
borrowers and their projects, the banks could subsist despite substantial amounts of virtually
useless assets. But as the deregulation of credit and interest rates proceeded, the weaknesses of
the banking system became evident. Following an audit of nine troubled banks, an estimated 62
billion Cedis (US$222 million at that time) of NPAs were identified. These assets weighed
heavily on the capital adequacy ratio, and the banks were consequently barred from expanding
credit to other, more promising activities, which were responding to the new incentives created
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by the reform program. To solve this bottleneck, in 1990 the World Bank’s IDA concessional
loan window provided funding to set up the Non-Performing Assets Recovery Trust (NPART).
Assets transferred to NPART were either offset against liabilities of the bank to the BOG or
transformed into BOG bonds. This permitted the banks to offload their non-performing loan
book, making it possible to sell off government’s shares in some financial institutions, and to
permit all to focus on profitable loan opportunities.
The rural banks, accounting for around 7 per cent of total deposits in the banking system (Sheng
and Tannor, 1996), accumulated substantial amounts of non-performing assets during the 1980s
but have only recently been subject to major restructuring. Of the 133 rural banks that were in
operation in 1998, 23 had their licenses withdrawn in late 1998 for not fulfilling the prudential
requirements, which are the same as for commercial banks. The BOG intends to create what they
call an apex institution for the development of a network of sound rural banks. Once this is in
operation, the BOG may continue its support by providing funds to hire outside auditors, or
through training. According to one of our interviewees, lack of human capital remains one of the
main problems to rural banks. As a result, book keeping is still often poor and rural banks
continue to accumulate bad debts. In the 1990s, a rural bank association was set up with the aim
to provide training and basic equipment. The BOG itself administers a number of specialized
credit lines, which are funnelled through the rural banks. Examples are funds to help
smallholders market their product, funds for land conservation and construction of irrigation and
a special fund for women. There is also a community bank refinance scheme which aims at
improving the balance sheets of rural banks.
Efforts have also been made to promote Non Banking Financial Institutions (NBFIs) to fill some
of the gaps left by the banks. In 1993, a law specifically dealing with NBFIs was introduced.
There are currently 2 discount houses, 7 savings and loans companies (IMF, 1999) and 11
brokerage firms in Ghana (GSE, 1999) among the NBFIs. The SSNIT, a social benefit fund, is
the largest financial institution in Ghana.
The Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) came into operation in 1990 with 11 listed companies and a
market capitalization equivalent to less than one per cent of GDP. The number of listed
companies has grown to 21 (GSE, 1999) and market capitalization is currently nearly a third of
GDP (Kenny and Moss, 1998). This rapid growth notwithstanding, the GSE remains rather
1 This situation is not uncommon in emerging economies, where only the wellestablished firms meet the listing requirements.
2 One must be careful, however, not to exaggerate the potential benefits of improvedaccess to credit. There appears to be a significant misconception about what increased supply ofcredit would actually achieve, not the least among the agents demanding such increasesthemselves (see, e.g., Buckley 1997).
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marginal as a source for funds for corporations.1 As an example, the market capitalization can be
compared to the 200 per cent of GDP ratio for the South African bourse. Furthermore, this rather
rapid growth of the GSE is mainly the result of the listing of Ashanti Goldfields Corporation
(AGS) in 1994. AGS account for approximately 90 per cent of total GSE market value.
As part of the program to revitalize the financial sector, and to give a larger weight to private
capital, in 1992 the government announced a strategy to divest its equity in commercial banks.
The largest commercial bank, Ghana Commercial Bank, now has a significant share of its equity
held by the public, while the two major expatriate banks are again completely or almost
completely in private hands. (See Divestiture below.) These changes have begun to have a
significant impact on the role and mode of operation of the financial sector.
The current state of the banking system
The restructuring efforts have been under way for more than a decade and remain a priority in
Ghana’s economic program. There is no doubt that the reforms have had a positive impact on the
effectiveness of the financial system in the country, which in turn has contributed to the
economic recovery.
One major concern for the sustainability of economic growth in Ghana is the lack of private
funds for long term investment. The country has derived most of its modest growth of income
per capita since the beginning of the reform program from enhanced productivity, while the
contribution of gross fixed investment has been trailing (see growth accounting below). An
important reason for this low level of investment may be a lack of credit to finance new fixed
capital.2
A major explanation for the lack of long term credit is that Ghana continues to be a very risky
environment for investors. Inflation is still high and volatile, adding substantial uncertainty to
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the real value of financial assets. Suppliers of credit are reluctant to lock up funds for long
periods. Banks, for example, are hesitant to commit funds for periods exceeding 3 to 6 months.
In addition to the detrimental effect of inflation on the supply of long term credit, the
government’s demand for funds crowds out credit to the private sector. The substantial and
persistent budget deficits have induced repeated drawing of funds from the public. To finance its
deficits, the government issues treasury bills at competitive interest rates. The T-bill rates have
consistently been at about the same level as lending rates since the beginning of the 1990s
(Figure 19). Moreover, risk averse banks and individuals often find T-bills more attractive than
private projects.
The unwillingness of banks to provide long-term capital also stems from the short-term
characteristics of deposits. Nearly 50 per cent of total deposits are demand deposits (see Figure
25) although the share of time deposits has been increasing throughout the 1990s. Moreover, the
soundness of clients is often difficult to assess due to lack of a track record in the form of
financial statements. This risky situation is often further compounded by the lack of proper
collateral, in particular for small and medium-sized firms.
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Figure 25
Source: International Financial Statistics
Note: Data for Sub-Saharan Africa are unweighted averages
Another characteristic of the current financial system in Ghana is the increasing dollarisation.
Ghanaians are allowed to hold accounts in banks abroad as well as foreign denominated accounts
in Ghana, with some restrictions. Foreign denominated loans are also permitted. The high
domestic interest rates, in combination with a real appreciation of the Cedi from 1995 through
late 1999, resulted in an increase in foreign denominated debt, since credit appeared substantially
cheaper abroad. The Banking Act of 1989 did not establish any limits regarding foreign
exchange exposure. However, as banks became more transparent, it soon became clear that
foreign denominated debt was an issue that had to be reckoned with. In response to the increased
urgency to regulate foreign exchange exposure of banks, a new law was introduced in December
1998. According to this new regulation, effective mid 1999, the net exposure shall not be more
than 15 percent of the net worth of a bank for one single currency, while the total exposure limit
is 30 percent. Given these limitations to foreign exchange exposure, the BOG does not appear to
-73-
Figure 26
be overly concerned with the risk stemming from foreign exchange exposure. Nevertheless, as
Figure 26 shows, the foreign exchange position of banks, i.e. the difference between foreign
liabilities and foreign assets as a ratio of total shareholders funds, has deteriorated substantially
during the 1990s rendering the banks vulnerable to changes in the exchange rate. Also of
concern, but more difficult to measure, may be the exposure of the customers of banks, although
several interviewees claimed that they only extended foreign denominated credits to companies
generating foreign exchange revenues.
Source: Ghana Quarterly Digest of Statistics
Note: Net foreign exchange position is defined as (foreign assets - foreign liabilities)/(total
shareholder funds for commercial banks and secondary banks).
Internal and External Balance
A useful way of summing up the macroeconomic effects of the economic reform program is to
consider the experience from the perspective of the internal-external balance type of model, first
developed by Swan (1956). This approach maps the real exchange rate on the vertical axis, and
1 Absorption is mapped relative to GDP to facilitate easy comparison of the balancebetween absorption and income. For long run sustainability, absorption and income mustbalance.
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Figure 27
absorption on the horizontal axis. Each of the four quadrants has an appropriate policy stance,
representing combinations of exchange rate and absorption policies. If, for example, the actual
situation falls in the southeast quadrant, this would call for macroeconomic expenditure restraint
combined with real depreciation of the currency.
The actual combinations of real exchange rate and absorption (relative to GDP) from 1983
through 1997 are mapped in sequence in Figure 27.1 At the launch of the reform program in
1983, the principal problem was the vastly overvalued currency, reflected in the extremely low
real exchange rate index. The effects of exchange rate reform while fiscal restraint was
maintained are shown as the annual observations moved upwards dramatically without straying
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significantly to the right. However, before the real exchange rate had returned to its level at
independence, the availability of foreign finance enabled domestic absorption relative to GDP to
rise dramatically. From the cluster of observations for 1989, 1990 and 1991 at a real exchange
rate index of about 80 and absorption of 1.07 to 1.08, the appropriate policy mix would have
been further real depreciation of the currency accompanied by reduced absorption. Instead, we
observe the launch of a circular sequence associated with the electoral cycle. In 1992 and 1993
absorption expanded, with some real depreciation. By 1994 the appropriate balance of policies
was reduction of both absorption and the real exchange rate – which is what was done.
However, the 1996 election and its aftermath saw real appreciation of the currency and expanded
absorption.
In brief, of the two policy stances identified in this framework, the fundamental problem of
getting the real exchange rate back in line was dealt with relatively successfully by the reform
program, but achievement of a sustainable balance between absorption and income was not.
76
Cocoa
At independence cocoa was Ghana’s principal export, providing a source of foreign exchange
earnings, a source of income for peasant farmers in many parts of the country, and a source of
government revenue. The deterioration of the cocoa sector prior to the reform program was thus a
disaster on many fronts.
Figure 28
Sources: International Financial Statistics, Stryker et al., and Ghana Cocoa Board
Note: Producer prices are converted to current dollars at the black market exchange rate.
The reform program brought about a rapid increase in the real price of foreign exchange through
1987. This permitted the Cocoa Board to triple the real producer price by the 1987/88 crop year
(Figure 10). The real producer price increase had the desired effect of reversing the decline of
Cocoa Board purchases and export volumes.
77
Part of the recovery was undoubtedly a reduction of outward smuggling of Ghanaian produced
beans to neighboring Cote d’Ivoire and Togo, for the producer price as a fraction of the world price
at the black market exchange rate had also recovered rapidly under the reform program. (See
Figure 28.) The reduction of smuggling was a real gain to the economy, eliminating the waste of
resources used in inefficient transportation of the beans across borders.
Unfortunately for Ghana, the world price of cocoa declined in real terms during early years of the
ERP. (See Figure 11.) This made it difficult for the Cocoa Board to keep the real producer price in
Cedis at the level achieved for the 1987/88 crop year. However, more than simply passing through
of the improved exchange rate was required to achieve full recovery for this important sector. The
Cocoa Board was a bloated organization, with excessive staffing. It was slow to reform itself, for
the same factors affecting the SOEs in general applied to the Cocoa Board.
The apparent recovery of export volume from the depths of 1983 through 1985 stalled by 1990. For
the next eight years the average export volume index was slightly less than the average of 1989 and
1990. This was scarcely surprising in light of the fact that the real producer price index in the 1990s
declined by about 40% from its post-reform peak in 1987/88 to a trough in 1992/93 and 1993/94. It
then only gradually moved back towards the post-reform peak in 1997/98.
The Cocoa Board’s ability to increase the real producer price was constrained by low world prices,
which in the early 1990s hovered at levels, in real terms, similar to the post independence trough of
1965. Then, just as there was some recovery in the world price, the real exchange rate of the Cedi
appreciated, squeezing the real local currency margin which the Cocoa Board had to work with.
Yet something more fundamental was at work. There are many more interests and individuals
involved in the cocoa sector than in other important sectors such as the minerals sector. These
interests included not only the farmers (large and small), but also those engaged in the purchasing
of the beans and transportation to the harbors, the research and extension services, the provision of
infrastructure, the furnishing of finance, the marketing, and local processing. The PNDC
government had found it difficult to achieve more than a pass through of the improved real
exchange rate to the producers, and elimination of hoards of ghost employees. The elected NDC
government found it even more difficult to reconcile the various competing interests in a democratic
society, including its own desperate need for revenues. The inability to reconcile the competing
78
interests in the cocoa sector meant that recovery elsewhere in the economy left cocoa with a
declining share of total exports (Figure 29).
Figure 29
Source: Leith (1974) and Ghana Quarterly Digest of Statistics
79
It was not until long after the 1992 transition to an elected government that the process of reforming
the Cocoa Board itself gained momentum. After many years of dithering and repeated failure to
reduce high costs in the cocoa sector, a comprehensive consultative process was undertaken in the
1990s, leading to the approval of a Cocoa Sector Development Strategy in 1999. It envisions:
a doubling of cocoa production in a decade;
building of new feeder roads and warehouses;
better credit and payment facilities for the farmers;
reliance on private buying of cocoa within the country;
partial liberalization of the Cocoa Board’s monopoly on external sales;
elimination of the price discount given to local processors; and
reduction of government’s share to 15% of the fob Ghana price.
The production objective for the crop year 2009/10 is 700,000 tonnes, which is 30% more than the
peak year of 1964/65 and 67% more than the average of 1960/61 through 1963/64. To achieve this
ambitious objective will certainly require successful implementation of the targets noted. It will
also depress the world price of cocoa, as Ghana’s share of the world market at about 12% can still
affect the world price. However, given a long run world demand elasticity that is smaller than -0.5,
the demand facing Ghana is elastic, and therefore total revenue would rise.1
1 Blomqvist and Haessel (1972) estimate the long-run world demand elasticity to be -
0.436. If we assume that there is no reduction of production in the rest of the world from a price
reduction, then the elasticity of demand facing Ghana is -(.436/.12) = -3.63.
80
Minerals
Ghana’s second most important export category had long been minerals, particularly gold, but also
including bauxite, diamonds, and manganese. Mineral exports had been adversely affected by both
the exchange rate and state ownership. Throughout the NRC/SMC government, the Limann
government, and to 1983 under the PNDC, minerals production had declined, to the point that in
1983 it was less than 50% of Busia’s last year in power, 1971. (Figure 30).
Figurre 30
Source: Ghana Quarterly Digest of Statistics
In contrast with the erratic recuperation of the cocoa sector, the successful resuscitation of the
minerals sector has been consistent and sustained. Exchange rate reform was important for the
recovery of the sector, for virtually 100% of the improvement in the real exchange rate was passed
through to the producers. However, in addition, an imaginative approach to institutional reform
was critical. A Minerals Commission was set up in 1986, whose purpose was to promote the
development of the sector. Some existing state-owned mineral enterprises were sold off, mostly to
foreign investors. Taking a cue from other successful mineral based export economies, the Minerals
Commission was able to negotiate arrangements with foreign investors that shared the returns
81
between the investors and Ghana. The overall result was dramatic.
The combination of exchange rate reform, privatization, and realistic royalty rates did wonders for
recovery of the minerals sector under the PNDC. By 1992 total production in the sector, led by
gold, had reached levels that exceeded those of the early 1970s. By 1991 gold production had more
than recovered the level of two decades earlier, and in 1992 the value of gold exports exceeded
cocoa exports, where it has remained since. The change-over to the NDC government did not halt
the momentum of mineral sector growth to new output records. As the real exchange rate continued
to appreciate through 1995, so too did mineral output and exports grow. Gold production in 1995
reached 2.5 times that of Busia’s last year, and 6 times that of 1983. (Figure 30).
The world price has had an important impact on the gold sector. As the rehabilitation of the state-
owned gold mines was gathering momentum in the second half of the 1980s, the world gold price
began to recover from a relatively sharp drop during the first half of the 1980s. This undoubtedly
contributed to the increased profitability of the sector (Figure 31).
Mineral production, once capacity is in place, typically has relatively low short-run marginal costs,
because the cost of opening up the deposit has already been sunk (much of it literally sunk in the
form of a mine shaft that has no alternative use). This makes it feasible to continue production at or
near capacity for extended periods, as long as marginal costs are covered. With the real exchange
rate reversing direction in 1996, and the fall in the world gold price beginning in 1997, the rapid
growth phase of mineral recovery came to an end. The growth rate leveled off, but the sector did
not shrink.
82
Figure 31
Source: International Financial Statistics
83
State-Owned Enterprises
The Background
Nkrumah had sought to modernize the economy and promote socialism via state-owned enterprises.
He had added to an already important state presence in the modern sector which had begun in the
1920s as the colonial government had used the state to establish modern facilities ranging from
railways to postal and telecommunications services. By the mid 1960s state owned enterprises were
involved in a wide range of activities: from the production of boats, bricks, fibre bags, liquor,
marble, paint, paper, steel, and sugar, to the running of enterprises engaged in farming, fishing,
construction, gold mining, hotels, airway services, and wholesale and retail trade. The National
Liberation Council (1966-69) had attempted to divest some of the enterprises, but in doing so left
itself open to the charges, which still persist today, that it did not do so in a way that protected the
public interest.2 In the end only a small dent was made in the size of the sector. Busia’s timid
attempts at privatization had also drawn criticism, while Acheampong had further extended the role
of the state in nationalizing various foreign owned companies during his early years, and Limann
had done little to turn the tide.
Divestiture
Transformation of the state-owned enterprise (SOE) sector was a critical area for reform, if for no
other reason than the sheer size of the enterprises and their low productivity. More than half of the
value added and employment in the industrial sector (including mining) was reported to be in SOEs
for 1987. (See Industrial Census 1987.) A similarly large presence of SOEs was evident in the
2 See, for example, E.A. Agbodo, (Executive Secretary, Divestiture Implementation
Committee):
”In our particular case, the established procedures have been designed to create such a high level of
transparency as to avoid some of the accusations levelled against the implementation of the first
divestiture program of 1966/67. ... Our search since 1992 to obtain particulars of those divestments
has not yielded any positive results. We still do not know how the companies were valued, how
many proposals or bids were received, how those bids were evaluated and above all, how much the
companies were sold for.”
“Divestiture Implementation Process in Ghana: Situational Context and the Way Forward,” in
Divestiture Implementation Committee, 1997, p. 24.
84
agricultural and service sectors, including banking. And, since state-owned banks owned
significant shares of SOE equity, the state indirectly owned even more than the direct ownership
figures suggested.
It was widely acknowledged that the only solution was divestiture. Yet despite the emphasis of the
reform program on freeing up markets, divestiture of SOEs lagged behind other reforms. The
reasons for the slowness in divestiture were many. Beginning with Nkrumah, the poor performance
of the state-owned enterprises had been attributed to factors such as corruption and poor
management, and not to the fundamental strategy itself. Hence, in this view, as long as corruption
was under control, there was no sense that divestiture was central to achieving a vibrant economy.
Several specific reasons should also be noted. First of all, because of the overhang of the
controversy associated with the immediate post-Nkrumah divestiture efforts, the PNDC felt it
crucial to ensure that each enterprise would be properly valued before it was put up for sale (rather
than rely on the willingness of purchasers to pay). This made the entire process far more complex
than exchange rate reform, requiring large numbers of accountants and administrators to sift
through the detail concerning the assets and liabilities about each company. Second, many SOEs in
the past had promised generous termination benefits to their employees, but had not funded the
liability implicit in that promise. Third, it did not appear possible for an SOE to declare bankruptcy
even if it were effectively in such a position. Many worthless moribund companies simply
remained on the books of the state. Fourth, the political dimension was never far from the surface.
The PNDC itself was reported to be split on the extent of the divestiture, for the sales of SOEs
would be either to local entrepreneurs who had enriched themselves under the old regime, or to
foreigners. Finally, the very process of privatization constrains government’s subsequent
intervention in the economy. While the private sector would regard this as a plus, politicians would
not necessarily do so. These various factors led to lengthy delays in deciding important issues such
as how to proceed, and which enterprises should be retained.
A Divestiture Secretariat was eventually set up in 1987, but it was not until 1990 that sales were
actually made. During the period 1990 through 1992 a total of 49 SOEs were sold. A further 26
were liquidated during the latter part of the PNDC rule.
The divestiture process quickened under the elected NDC government. In its first year (1993), the
status of the Divestiture Implementation Committee (DIC) was formalized with the passage
85
of a law governing its mandate. The volumes of the different types of divestitures handled by the
DIC are spelt out in Table 3 below. Payment for the acquisitions were not always 100% cash, and
on a few occasions the purchaser defaulted on the installments and repossession occurred. Many of
the enterprises divested had liabilities outstanding at the time of sale, particularly severance pay to
workers. The proceeds of divestiture by the DIC were used first to discharge those liabilities, and
then make payments to government. Most of these divestitures yielded only modest amounts to
Government, cumulating to US$172 million by the end of 1998, which amounted to less than ten
In addition to the divestitures handled by the DIC, there were a few major ones handled by
government directly. These were: the substantial floatation of Ashanti Goldfields for US$293.7
million to foreign investors plus 61 billion to Ghanaian investors; the sale of Ghana Telecoms for
US$38 million to foreign investors; and the sale of part of the government’s shares in Ghana
Commercial Bank and the Social Security Bank to the public for US$16.6 million plus 44.1billion.
The rehabilitation of each of these companies was essential for other elements of the recovery
program -- the mineral sector, infrastructure renewal, and the financial sector reform, respectively.
86
The divestiture of the state-owned banks attracted substantial initial interest, but subsequently
stalled, essentially due to the poor quality of some of the state-owned banks. (See Table 4 for the
current structure of ownership of banks.) The partial privatization of GCB in 1996 was initially
intended to include only 30 per cent of the shares, but strong public interest induced the government
to increase its offer to 41%. The government has committed to sell off at least an additional 40 per
cent, hence leaving 19 per cent of the shares with the state. Under Acheampong the government of
Ghana had acquired 40 per cent of the shares in Standard Chartered and Barclays. All of these
shares have been divested from Standard Chartered and in 1998 the government sold three quarters
of its 40 per cent stake in Barclays. Plans are made to sell off a substantial part of the National
Investment Bank, while the Agricultural Development Bank will remain fully in government hands.
Table 4:
Current Structure of Banking Sector
Source: Market shares, refers to end of 1996 - Standard Chartered (1997). Ownership – Standard
Chartered (1997), IMF (1999) and Letter of intent to the IMF, (1999)
Note: the GOG/BOG ownership only refers to direct ownership and ignores shares held by the
SSNIT.
One of the major criticisms from institutions such as the IMF is that the divestiture of state owned
banks, and the liquidation of weak banks, has not progressed rapidly enough. The Ghanaian
government does maintain that it is committed to remedying this shortcoming. In its letter of intent
to the IMF (1999), the government stated that it intended to divest all remaining shares in financial
institutions other than the ADB, without giving a precise time frame. Moreover, shares in banks
Assets Deposits EmployeesGOG/BOG
ownership (%)Proposed
divestmentGhana Commercial Bank (GCB) 25.2 26.4 36 59.1 40Social Security Bank (SSB) 13.6 14.3 15.2 5.3Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) 12.6 14.2 6.2 0Barclays Bank Ghana (BBG) 12.2 14.7 10.1 10Agricultural Development Bank(ADB) 9.4 5.2 9.1 100 0Bank for Housing and Construction (BHC) 4.7 3.0 9.1 60 LiquidatedNational Investment Bank (NIB) 4.5 3.0 5.3 30 30Other 17.8 19.2 9Total 100 100 100
Share of total
87
owned by the BOG are to be divested before the end of 1999.3 In addition, all banks not satisfying
the capital adequacy ratios would have their licenses withdrawn.
At the same time, it is worth noting that certain state-owned enterprises have been reserved from
divestiture because of their “strategic” importance. Some observers interpret this as political
patronage, noting that officials who manage these institutions know that their tenure depends on the
NDC party, and act accordingly. (See Gyimah-Boadi 1999.)
In sum, while slow to gather momentum, the divestiture program finally moved forward under the
NDC government. The DIC is remarkably open about the details of the procedures and results of
sales. The mode of sale, the purchaser, the purchase price, and any balance owing are all public
information. A seminar for members of the parliamentary committees of finance and public
accounts was held in late 1997, and the proceedings have been published. (See DIC 1997.) While
questions remain about some details (see, for example, Ayee 1998), there are now several stories for
the DIC to tell of successful former state owned enterprises.
3 The anomalus nature of this situation was, of course, recognized by the government and
the central bank. But with so many items on the agenda for financial sector reform, this matter had
not reached the top of the pile on its own.
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Social Infrastructure
A significant element in the economic recovery was the restoration of the social overhead capital.
While data documenting the deterioration of the social infrastructure are scarce, the anecdotal
evidence is overwhelming. Prior to the recovery program the road and rail transport system had
become so decrepit that it would take days either to move the limited imported goods inland or to
get agricultural produce to market. Roads might be recorded in the ministry as paved and in good
condition, but they were virtually impassible. The railway tracks and rolling stock had all but
broken down. Similarly, the telecommunications system was no longer functioning. Telephone
instruments and lines, while recorded on the books of the telephone company, no longer worked.
The officially recorded data on telephones and rail traffic prior to the launching of the ERP in 1983
are reported in Figures 32 and 33
Figure 32
Source: Ghana Quarterly Digest of Statistics
The reform program was instrumental in turning these around. Roads were rebuilt, and many
repaved. Rail lines were rehabilitated, and the rolling stock renewed. Telephones that work are
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now widely available. The national electricity grid has been extended to many areas of the country
that were formerly not served. In light of the true situation prior to 1983, the rehabilitation of the
social overhead capital since then has been far more dramatic than the official data suggest.
Figure 33
Source: Ghana Quarterly Digest of Statistics
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Human Development & Income Distribution
The reforms also had major implications for income distribution as well the public provision of
services such as education and health care, primarily through the availability of more funds,
including foreign capital. Data is very scant, in particular regarding poverty and health and our
assessment will accordingly be somewhat impressionistic. Data on education suffers much of the
same weaknesses as the data on infrastructure referred to above. While enrolment rates may have
continued at levels indicated by the available data even during the worst years of economic decline,
it is beyond doubt that the deterioration of the quality of education was severe, due to lack of
teachers, books and other materials. Moreover, even if the quality aspect of education in Ghana
could be accounted for, the enrolment rates would still not correctly reflect their impact on the stock
of human capital, inasmuch as many educated Ghanaians – including teachers - left the country.
This is not to say that the data on school enrolment are without value, only that they should be
interpreted with much care. This is probably particularly true in the case of Ghana.
The general rise in government expenditure made possible by the economic recovery in the
1980s and the inflow of aid, did not exclude social spending on education, health and social
welfare. According to Roe and Schneider (1992), spending on social functions increased from 30
per cent of total recurrent expenditure in 1983 to 48 percent in 1989. Spending per primary school
pupil more than doubled from 1984 to 1990 (WDI, 1999). Undoubtedly, given the fact that lack of
funds was the main reason for the deterioration of health and educational services prior to the
reforms, this increase in spending has helped improve quality in both areas. The number of teachers
increased during the 1980s, both for primary and secondary school (Figure 34). Meanwhile,
recorded enrolment rates both in primary and secondary school were stagnant or even declining
during the 1980s. (See Figures 35 and 36).
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Figure34
Source: World development Indicators
Education during the period after 1990 is more difficult to assess due to lack of data. Concerns
about the quality of education continue to be raised, notably by the UNDP Ghana Human
Development Report (1997). According to the latter, only a small fraction of primary school pupils
met certain criteria regarding literacy and numerical skills as measured by tests carried annually
since 1993, although the results have shown a moderately improving trend since. Not surprisingly,
the rural areas scored worse than the urban areas. These type of tests are inherently subjective, and
the short time span covered only allows us to draw tentative conclusions regarding the modest
improvement of educational quality during the 1990s. The Core Welfare Indicators Questionnaire
(CWIQ) survey from 1997, indicates that lack of teachers and books are still the most important
reasons for dissatisfaction with primary education, in particular among the rural poor. During the
same period, spending on health has largely been stagnant as a share of GDP (see Figure 37).
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Figure 35
Source: World Development Indicators
The macroeconomic policies before the reforms had important distributional implications. The high
inflation made it extremely costly to hold cash. In addition, the shallow and distorted financial
system did not provide any investment opportunities by agents relying on occasional receipts of
cash. As an example, cocoa farmers sold their annual crops for cash, which they had to rely on to
support themselves with until the next annual harvest. By consequence, they and other heavy
holders of cash became very vulnerable to the impact of inflation eroding their income with time.
The population depending on cash in this manner was predominantly the rural poor. Hence, the
malfunctioning of the financial system in conjunction with the high inflation had severely negative
effects on income distribution, hitting the poor the most. For the cocoa producers, this effect was
added to the effect of being heavily taxed through low producer prices and the overvalued currency.
These considerations have been mitigated, albeit not eliminated, by the reforms. Inflation has been
brought down, temporary spurts notwithstanding. The possibilities to use the financial system as
protection from inflation are still limited however, due to the generally poor state of the rural banks.
Further, since the rents attributable to the control system essentially benefited the urban privileged
groups, it is reasonable to assume that the elimination of these rents has worked in favour of more
93
equitable distribution.
Figure 36
Source: World Development Indicators
94
Figure 37
1 It should be noted that output per worker and output per capita are not exactly the samething. If the population growth is faster than the number of workers, then per capita GDP willnot grow as fast as output per worker.
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Measuring the Reform Program’s Success
The reform program stopped the slide of the economy. Using the most common measure, GDP
per capita, the nadir was reached in 1983, with the economy on a recovery path since. Yet that
recovery has been relatively modest, for per capita GDP in Ghana today is no better than it was in
the early 1950s, and is still significantly below that of the early 1970s, before the downward spiral
began. Why has there not been more progress?
A useful way of looking at the issue is to consider an aggregate production function, where inputs
of capital and labour produce real GDP. In this framework, growth of GDP per worker arises
either from increases in capital per worker or from increases in total factor productivity. Thus,
there are two potential reasons for the failure to return to former income levels.1 One is that
investment in the economy has not restored capital per worker to its former level, and the other is
that total factor productivity has not fully recovered to the levels achieved in the earlier periods.
The division between these two can be sorted out by carrying out a growth accounting exercise,
which follows.
Growth Accounting
Several approaches to growth accounting are conceivable. One is to estimate an aggregate
production function for the economy of Ghana, and apply the estimated coefficients for capital,
labour (and any other factors of production), to compare the growth of factor inputs against the
growth of output. This proved impossible, due to the weak statistical significance as a result of
the limited degrees of freedom. A second option is to employ a panel consisting of various
countries in a time series regression. This method has the advantage of allowing for inclusion of
more explanatory variables without compromising their statistical significance. Moreover, it
provides a good framework for simulations of future growth scenarios. This was the method
employed by Berthélemy and Söderling (1999). The obvious drawback, however, is that the
production function estimated for the panel of countries, even after accounting for country
specific trends and dummies, may not be an appropriate representation of a single country’s
aggregate production function.
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Figure 38
In order to avoid possible bias from other countries, we opted for a simpler, less detailed method,
distinguishing only between capital deepening and total factor productivity growth to explain
changes in the GDP/labour ratio. For this purpose we assume a Cobb-Douglas production
function in the two production factors capital and labour. We further assume constant returns to
scale. The capital coefficient is then given by factor shares. The labour share is the average
labour income as a ratio of GDP between the years 1956 and 1969. During this period trade
restrictions were relatively modest (with the exception of 1964-67) and bias from lack of foreign
exchange is therefore limited. Data were drawn from Brown (1972), for which the labour share
was 0.77, implying a capital coefficient of 0.23. This rather low capital coefficient may be
explained by excess capacity, including SOEs and mining facilities.
Source: Authors’ calculations. Capital stock and real GDP drawn from Nehru and Dhareshwar
(1993), extended after 1990 by investment series from WDI. Labor force from African
Development Indicators.
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The growth accounting results are displayed in cumulative form in Figure 38. The evolution of
the GDP/labor, indexed on the 1961 level, is shown as the solid line. The two bars represent the
determinants of growth: (1) capital deepening, and (2) total factor productivity. Capital deepening
is measured as the capital to labor ratio, also indexed on the 1961 level and multiplied by the
estimated capital coefficient (0.23). Total factor productivity is calculated as a residual. The
height of a particular bar represents its cumulative contribution to real GDP/labor growth since
1961.
The economic decline to 1983 is clearly detectable from Figure 38. Moreover, although growth
has been impressive since 1983 real GDP per worker was still below its 1961 level in 1996, and
well below its peak at the beginning of the 1970s.The low rate of net investment since the
beginning of the 1970s is evident from Figure 38. The ratio of capital to labor was stagnant
during the 1970s, indicating that the capital stock was merely keeping up with growth of labor. In
the early 1980s, as a result of the investment rate reaching a level as low as four per cent of GDP
in 1982 (Figure 12), the capital/labor ratio declined.
Despite the elimination of some of the extreme distortions, such as the foreign exchange black
market premium, in the 1990s investment remained relatively low (Figure 12). Further, a
substantial portion of the investment that did occur appears to have been financed by foreign
assistance, some of which was grant money and soft loans. Private domestic investment remains
low, apparently hampered by the lack of long term credit facilities and the unstable
macroeconomic environment.
The efficiency of the economy, or the amount of output generated per unit of factor inputs, has
still not caught up with its level at the beginning of the 1960s. This is seen by the accumulated
change in total factor productivity, which was still negative at the end of the series. In sum, the
reform program was able to yield a small increase in the capital/labour ratio, and a larger increase
in total factor productivity. Together, these two outcomes of the reform program have generated
a modest increase in GDP per worker.
Much of this growth record can be explained by the waxing and waning of market distortions and
macroeconomic uncertainty. These had both a direct impact on Ghana’s economic performance,
and no doubt contributed to the low level of investment in the country. In light of this, the
deterioration of the fiscal balance from 1992 onwards, leading to macroeconomic instability and
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real exchange rate appreciation, suggest that one of the major reasons for the slowing of total
factor productivity growth in recent years is the reappearance of distortions. Even though the
extremes of the foreign exchange black market premium were down to single digit levels for the
first time since 1961, other distortions remain. Both labour market and financial market
distortions are significant, but are more difficult to tackle. In this sense the easier work has been
done and future growth will be more difficult to achieve.
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3. Conclusion
Ghana’s turbulent economic and political history contrasts sharply with the great potential that the
country exhibited at independence. What went wrong? With over forty years of experience,
scholars today are in a position to begin providing an answer that question. Inevitably, the answer
has many dimensions -- cultural, economic, political, and social -- and within each dimension there
were numerous complexities, all of which were interacting with each other. To contribute to a
better understanding of the economic dimension, this study has focused on the determinants
Ghana’s long-term economic growth performance. The principal purpose of this chapter, then, is
to sum up what we have learned about the determinants of Ghana’s long term growth.
At the most basic level, Ghana's economic atrophy to 1983, and modest recovery since the
launching of the reform program, are attributable to the combination of weak investment and low
productivity. This was spelt out in the growth accounting analysis contained in Chapter 2. The
low investment rates, in the presence of rapid labor force growth, have meant that the
capital/labor ratio today is only on a par with that achieved at the time of Nkrumah's overthrow in
1966. Further, the productivity of labor and capital continue to lag substantially behind the levels
achieved in the early years of independence.
But why have investment rates and productivity been low? The answer to that question is much
more complex. It involves economic policy failures and political failures. In what follows, we
trace various economic and political themes which, with their variations, repeated throughout the
story of modern Ghana, help explain the economic performance.
With a clearer understanding of the economic and political past, and expectations concerning the
nature of the political regime emerging in the year 2000, it is possible to contemplate what the
future might hold. One way of doing that is to project various potential future scenarios, based
on plausible values for key economic variables. This permits us to examine the feasibility of
various future scenarios that have been proposed, such as Ghana’s official Vision 2020, and to
identify the policy thrusts that would achieve sustained high growth for Ghana.
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Economic Policy Themes
There are four major policy themes that run through the last half century of Ghana’s modern
history: excess demand, currency overvaluation, and anti-export bias, and financial repression.
Each has had a major impact on the outcome.
Excess Demand
The first theme is excess demand. Repeatedly, from the days of Nkrumah onwards, fiscal and
monetary policies failed to control excess demand. Some bouts were worse than others, and there
were some periods of restraint, such as under the NLC following Nkrumah's overthrow. But the
overwhelming effect for several decades has been that no Ghanaian has been able to count on a
stable macroeconomic environment beyond the immediate horizon.
The principal source of excess demand was the government budget. Prior to independence,
government expenditures were kept at a steady share of just under 10% of GDP, while
fluctuations in government revenues, due mostly to variation in cocoa tax receipts, were simply
absorbed by the government's bank balances. But from independence on, control over
government's expenditure and net lending evaporated. This changed briefly during the first few
years of the reform program, but today remains the central problem. In the meantime, from the
early 1960s onwards, government revenues were stuck at considerably less than expenditures.
As overvaluation of the currency became more serious, the tax revenue base was badly eroded.
This occurred in the late Nkrumah era, and even more seriously from the mid-1970s until the mid
1980s.
The investment rate was generally negatively related to the government budget deficit. The
channels for this relationship were many, but the most important were the following:
(1) The unstable macroeconomic environment generated uncertainty, adversely affecting the
private investment climate and the profitability of investments once made.
(2) Government's own investment was curtailed by its shrinking ability to raise revenue, either by
taxes or foreign borrowing.
(3) The lack of essential infrastructure and services normally provided by government, such as
roads and schools, further constricted the economy and government's revenue.
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Monetary policy was seldom used to restore macroeconomic balance. Rather, the government
budget deficit was frequently financed by credit from the banking system, with consequent high
money growth rates, inflation, and inflation tax. Until the reform program was launched, real
interest rates were seldom positive, and often highly negative. Even with the reform program,
real interest rates have not remained consistently positive.
Currency Overvaluation
The second explanatory theme is exchange rate policy. Excess aggregate demand interacted with
a fixed exchange rate to create excess demand for foreign exchange. When the reserves were
depleted, the resort to controls in 1961 set in motion the first round of currency overvaluation,
shrinking exports, declining imports, and falling government revenues. The overvaluation of the
Cedi was reversed only temporarily by devaluations in 1967 and 1971. The cycle repeated itself
in more extreme form during the 1970s. The reform program brought a major reversal, finally
restoring the real exchange rate to its level at independence in the early 1990s. However, this
proved only temporary, as the real exchange rate fell back dramatically in the 1990s, eventually
recovering in late 1999.
The level of the real exchange rate clearly affected the real economy, both by directly affecting the
volume of international trade and indirectly through the government revenue received from taxes
on international trade, and hence the budget deficit. The considerable instability of the real
exchange rate also played an important part. Export and import competing producers have both
faced substantial uncertainty about their real returns throughout Ghana’s modern history. That
uncertainty has remained in the 1990s, which reduced the gains from reopening the economy to
international trade. The potential of the tradeables sector to serve as an engine of growth was
thus diminished.
The interaction between the real exchange rate and government revenue merits special emphasis.
The base for much of government’s revenue was denominated in foreign exchange at the official
exchange rate. Import duties and the cocoa export tax accounted for well over 50% of
government revenue into the 1960s. Excise duties were augmented substantially in the 1960s, but
these were levied almost exclusively on importables. These three together thus accounted for
over two thirds of government revenues in almost every year until the reform program was
launched. The failure to maintain the real exchange rate at a competitive level meant not only that
the volume of exports and thus imports was restricted, but that the valuation for tax purposes was
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vastly understated. It is no wonder, therefore, that until the late 1980s government revenues
paralleled the real exchange rate.
Bias Against Major Export Sectors
Third, over the decades Ghanaian policy ignored the potential gain from focusing on the nation’s
comparative advantage in it’s traditional export sectors. These sectors suffered not only from
overvaluation of the currency, but also from various elements that have systematically
discriminated against them.
The best known is cocoa, where the real producer price, even fifteen years after the launching of
the reform program, has not recovered to the levels of the early 1960s. The cocoa export tax has
always been much higher than optimal in light of Ghana’s limited power in the world market.
This, in turn, contributed to a substantial reduction of market share and hence a diminution of that
market power. Reinvestment in research and development, and infrastructure in support of the
sector has been inadequate. Inflation and financial repression were especially hard on the sector,
and government’s insistence on state involvement in the collection and marketing of cocoa
absorbed a large share of the potential profit. The length of time it took to reach a consensus on a
cocoa sector development strategy, finally launched in 1999, is indicative of the ambivalent
attitude towards the sector.
The minerals sector has done better under the reform program, but was the victim of systematic
discrimination before. In addition to currency overvaluation, state ownership of many of the
mines, neglect of infrastructure, demands for costly local processing, and lack of geological
survey information all kept the sector from achieving its potential as an engine of growth.
Traditional exports have also been victims of some considerable variation in the world prices, with
prices falling, sometimes at inopportune times. The world price of cocoa in the late 1990s was
half what it had been in real terms when the reform program was launched. The world gold price
has also dropped by more than 25% over the same period.
Financial Repression
The fourth major theme is financial repression. The potential for the financial sector to support the
growth of the real sector was systematically suppressed. The devices were many, ranging from
administered interest rates and credit allocation, to state ownership of financial institutions, to
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arbitrary confiscations of financial assets. These would have been damaging enough in their own
right, but their potency was considerably amplified by inflation.
The reform program has removed many of the more egregious interventions in the financial
sector. But given the ongoing risk of macroeconomic instability and real exchange rate instability,
the financial sector is not well placed to manage business risk. Further, the shadow of the past
remains, for the public continues to remain leery of holding Cedi denominated financial assets.
The financial sector is not yet playing its potential role in mobilizing savings, evaluating
innovations, and channeling funds into activities with promise for success. Consequently, the
ongoing process of transferring resources from low productivity activities to high productivity
activities, which is fundamental to increasing productivity, is hampered.
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Political Themes
Politics has always been a key determinant of Ghana’s economic policy. The precise mechanism,
however, requires careful elucidation. We begin by looking at the overstretched state, and then
turn to look at the effect of regime type on the economic outcomes.
Overstretched State
A fundamental fallacy took hold during the colonial era: the absence of entrepreneurs engaged in
the modern sector required the state to assume the role. Nkrumah expanded on this thrust,
establishing numerous state owned enterprises. The augmented role of the state was also cloaked
in nationalist rhetoric, first by Nkrumah, and later by others, such as Acheampong in his
indigenization decrees. Yet the very limited capacity of the state to effectively manage both these
enterprises and the more traditional activities of the state was never addressed.
Most of the SOEs created by Nkrumah were kept under the wing of the state by subsequent
governments, following the political furore associated with the limited post-Nkrumah divestiture.
The cost of the huge SOE sector can never be fully assessed, but the sheer inefficiency and waste
associated with a vast network of establishments facing no serious budget constraint explain a
considerable part of the low productivity of the Ghanaian economy. In an attempt to reverse the
drain of the SOEs on the rest of the economy, an ambitious divestiture program was planned
during the early years of the reform. But because of the limited capacity of the state, the process
was slow to commence and, while accelerating in recent years, is still incomplete.
Nkrumah also began to use the power of the state to redistribute income from the political losers
to the political winners -- i.e., his supporters. The winner-take-all system of government meant
that the political losers were also the economic losers -- permanently, until power was wrested by
force. Acheampong continued to use the state to create economic winners and losers. But the
insecurity of that regime left it unable to limit access to the rents which its policies generated. The
principal industries in the country became rent-seeking and smuggling. Had the effects of the
redistributive policies been confined simply to the distortions of adverse incentives, the damage
would have been far less. The cost was much greater because rent-seeking also wasted real
resources.
1 See, for example, the detailed list of actions required by the IMF, attached to Ghana’sletter of intent dated November 3, 1999.
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Repeatedly new governments would blame the sorry state of the country on their predecessors’
incompetent administration. Never was there any recognition that a large part of the blame lay in
the combination of the limited capacity of the state and the growth retarding economic policies
pursued. Having blamed their predecessors’ problems on incompetent administration, successor
governments failed repeatedly to limit the role of the state to those activities that could be
efficiently administered. Successive governments also failed to achieve a national consensus on
priorities within that administrative constraint, taking on commitments that could only be met if
the administration of other activities lapsed.
It was only after harsh experimentation that Rawlings realized new economic policies were
required. Yet he remained a reluctant convert, deeply suspicious of the entrepreneurs who had
responded to the incentives created by his predecessors – a suspicion which was mutually felt –
and loath to withdraw the state from many of the activities that had overstretched it. The reform
program thus floundered as it moved beyond the administratively easier reforms (such as the
exchange rate) into more complex initiatives (such as divestiture). This, in turn, led the various
donor agencies supporting the reform program to demand in ever greater detail specific
administrative actions, leaving the Ghana government less and less the owner of the reforms.1
Regime Type and Economic Growth
Some regimes were more successful than others at achieving economic growth, and some of those
differences in outcome were clearly attributable to different economic policies, and not to regime
type. On first glance economic outcomes appear not to have been affected by regime type. For
example, it was the military regime of Generals Acheampong and Akuffo that presided over the
largest drop in real GDP per capita, while it was the military regime of Flt. Lt. Rawlings that
initiated the economic reform program that stopped the economic atrophy and resumed economic
growth. Nevertheless, this does not confirm the null hypothesis. On the contrary, an important
question remains: Independent of the economic policies pursued, did the type of regime itself
affect economic growth?
Before examining the possible effects of regime type, it is useful to characterize the different
regime types. The most useful taxonomy for our purposes is to distinguish regimes on the basis
1 Killick (1978), for example, characterizes the policies pursued by Nkrumah as“development economics in action,” suggesting that Nkrumah was simply trying to implement theorthodoxy of the time.
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of the interest of the ruler(s). On this basis there is a central distinction between democratic and
autocratic rule. In the former, decisions are taken by the ruler(s) on the basis of the perceived
interests of the dominant group in the electorate. In the latter, decisions are taken by the autocrat
on the basis of his/her own interests. There is a third possibility – anarchy, where there is no over
riding rule, with each individual acting in his/her own interests. This taxonomy involves
considerable oversimplification, and glosses over some significant subtleties that distinguish the
different regimes, and different time periods within regimes. Nevertheless, it is a useful starting
point.
Mancur Olson (2000) identified two general conditions that are required for a market economy to
be successful: (1) well defined and secure property rights; and (2) absence of predation. Olson
also showed that both an autocrat and a democracy have an interest in making the society
productive, and thus to provide well define property rights and to limit the extent of predation by
the regime. However, because the members of the ruling group in a democracy are also recipients
of their share of society’s income, the optimal rate of predation by the ruling group in a
democracy will be less than in an autocracy. In the third possible type – anarchy – each individual
has only an infinitesimal interest in the overall welfare of society, so has an interest in taking as
much as possible for himself without any consideration for the effect on the total income.
Anarchy provides neither well defined property rights nor absence of predation, and hence
generally does not lead to economic growth.
Characterizing Ghana’s Regimes
With this taxonomy in mind, it is useful to review the different regimes in terms of governance
(democracy, autocracy, or anarchy); and the impact of each regime on the two keys to successful
market economies (respect for property rights and the absence of predation).
Nkrumah took power at independence as the leader of a democratically elected government.
Much of his policy thrust was redistributive, albeit in the name of producing rapid economic
growth. 1 The relative returns to traditional economic activities such as cocoa, were reduced, in
favor of modern sector activities such as SOEs, thereby creating a new vested interest. Nkrumah
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skillfully used his leadership position to gradually transform his government into an autocracy
which would not tolerate any dissent. In the process, the redistributive economic policies became
increasingly predatory, and a new vested interest was created. Although the Nkrumah regime
never formally confiscated property, it did initiate the use of several confiscatory devices – the
inflation tax on cash balances, the use of the producer price of cocoa to levy a tax far in excess of
the optimal export tax, and the use of import licencing and exchange control to deny access to
importers deemed “non-essential”.
The NLC that overthrew Nkrumah in early 1966 was also autocratic. But it used its power
principally to restore the pre-Nkrumah status quo, both in terms of economic policy and
governance. The democratically elected Busia government that took over from the NLC
continued the broad economic thrust initiated by the NLC. Debate over economic policy was
vigorous, but few entrepreneurs anticipated the downward political spiral that was to follow. The
economic reward for Ghanaian society was a short period of rapid economic growth.
The Busia government sought to reverse the redistribution set in motion by Nkrumah. It was not
simply a matter of reversing his policy thrust, however. A large part of the modern sector owed
its existence to the distortions that Nkrumah had initiated. Those policies had thus created vested
interests in the distributive arrangements he had put in place. The broad thrust of the NLC and
Busia governments to restore the balance, faced the opposition of those interests. The
devaluation of late 1971 which, perhaps unwittingly, tipped relative returns dramatically against
the military, triggered the return of a military government.
Initially the military government led by Acheampong focused on continuing the policy see-saw,
simply reversing the policies of Busia. The most dramatic was the appreciation of the currency,
but a variety of other autarkic policies – including “operation feed yourself,” and the
indigenization decrees – were instituted as well. In addition, the regime became increasingly
autocratic. The military officers, acting like autocrats the world over, took an ever larger share of
the economic spoils for themselves. Had the evolution of the regime stopped at that point, the
damage would have been similar to the damage sustained during Nkrumah’s autocratic period.
General Acheampong’s government gradually descended into economic anarchy. As Leith and
Lofchie (1993) argue, this was due to a combination of: (1) failure to control access to the rents
generated by the control regime; (2) a shrinking of the size of the rent pool due to the increasingly
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autarchic policies; and (3) a political discount rate that rose rapidly as the regime remained longer
and longer in power. While the military attempted to restore its luster by first renaming the
regime, and later by replacing Acheampong with General Akuffo, the descent towards anarchy
began to take its toll on the economy. Rights to reap the rewards from past investments in things
like cocoa trees, or even the right to the retain the real value of cash balances, were withdrawn by
the cocoa pricing and aggregate demand policies respectively. The rents created by the excess
demand were distributed by caprice, and could just as capriciously be taken away. Both the
nature of the political regime and the economic policies thus contributed to the economic atrophy
of the mid 1970s.
The events of 1979, including the asset confiscations under Akuffo, and the chaotic rooting out of
corruption by Rawlings, simply added to the insecurity of property. The combination of the
ineptitude of the democratically elected government of Limann and the anarchy of 1979, meant
that economic agents remained traumatized, so that none of the potential returns from a
democratic form of government materialized during 1980 and 1981. Instead, economic agents
engaged in a frantic scramble for whatever rents might be available.
The anarchy continued with the return of Rawlings on December 31, 1981, intent on destroying
the corruption of the old regime. So too, the economic atrophy continued.
The chaos of 1982 gradually faded as the economic reform program took hold in 1983. The
intention of Rawlings and his economic team to restore the economy to health became clear to all.
In the years that followed, with Rawlings more securely in power, the regime progressed in
economic terms from anarchy to autocracy. As the specter of anarchy faded, government
provided more security of individual property rights, and began to provide some public goods.
This transformation of regime type contributed significantly to the unbroken stream of increases in
real GDP per capita starting in 1985.
The resumption of electoral competition in 1992, and the openly contested elections of 1996, re-
established Ghana as a fundamentally democratic society. However, for many entrepreneurs,
memories of the confiscations of the past remained vivid as long as Rawlings stayed associated
with the government. Further, in the run-up to the each of the elections, the PNDC/NDC
governments chose to engage in deficit finance, indirectly engaging in the predation of inflation
that Nkrumah had initiated in the early 1960s, and others had repeated subsequently. Thus, the
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economic gain to Ghana of moving from anarchy to autocracy to democracy was less than it
might have been.
Interaction
Each of the economic and political themes just outlined would have been sufficient to slow long-
term economic growth on its own. When all were working in concert, as they were for a decade
prior to launching the reform program, the effect of each was substantially amplified. In
aggregate the effect was overwhelming, generating economic atrophy, not growth.
Efforts to reverse the thrust of each have been underway for some fifteen years, but the process is
still incomplete. The reform program has succeeded in delivering real growth of GDP per capita,
but that summary indicator has only reached about the same level that prevailed at independence,
and total factor productivity is still less than in the early 1960s. Macroeconomic balance has not
been maintained consistently. Currency overvaluation was reversed, but in recent years instability
of the real exchange rate has emerged. Financial repression, which before the reforms was
serious, has been eased, but not lifted. Memories of inflation and asset confiscation linger.
Traditional exports of minerals and cocoa, which shrank to a fraction of their potential, have
recovered from the depths, but have not fulfilled their potential as engines of growth. The limited
capacity of the state, in the absence of a national consensus on priorities, remains a constraint on
growth. And, finally, the potential fruits of a democratic form of government are yet to be fully
realized.
Many Ghanaians, and the international agencies supporting the reform program, recognize that
these elements explain much of the atrophy and later recovery. What remains to achieve is
consistent application of these lessons over the long term.
1 The baseline TFP growth rate is assumed to be 1.6% per annum, and the best case rateis 2.1% per annum. The labor force growth rate begins as 3.35% per annum in 1996, and instages declines to 2.70% in the later years.
2 Vision 2020, p. 5.
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Future Prospects
Given what has been learned from the past, what are the prospects for future growth? One way
to assess the potential for future growth in Ghana is to simulate scenarios, given a certain set of
assumptions. Scenario simulations are obviously crude, and should not be interpreted literally.
However, they are useful to provide a rough idea of the impact of certain assumptions. Hence,
we construct two different scenarios, using the same simple analytical framework as for the
growth accounting exercise earlier. We also compare the two scenarios with the Ghanaian
authorities’ own long term forecast or development plan.
In the first scenario, which we call the baseline scenario, we simply extrapolate the growth rates
of the capital stock and total factor productivity, using the average growth rates for the period
1992-96, corresponding to the period after the first post-ERP elections. The second scenario is as
optimistic as we judged possible without crossing the line of the unrealistic, and should be
considered as a best case scenario. For this we use the total factor productivity growth rate of
the1984-89 period together with the highest investment rate attained during the ERP (20 per cent
of GDP). Projections of labor force growth are taken from UN World Population Prospects.1
These scenarios may be compared to the major long term development goal presented by
President Rawlings to the Parliament of Ghana in 1995, called Vision 2020. This document
proposed that Ghana should become a “vibrant-middle income nation within the next twenty five
years.”2 Economic growth was targeted to attain 8 per cent per annum on average, through a
strategy of human capital development, improved macro-economic policies, diversification of the
economy, the creation of a business friendly environment, trade openness, the promotion of an
efficient financial system, among others.
The underlying GDP growth rates of the base line and best case scenarios are compared with
Vision 2020 in Table 5 along with the resultant GDP per capita. Figure 39 shows the results from
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the two scenarios compared with the Vision 2020 goal in the context of real GDP per capita since
1960.
Table 5:
Long term growth rates (%)
GDP growth rate GDP/capita growth GDP/capita in 2020 (1996 $)
Base line 4.4 2.1 595
Best case 5.5 3.3 777
Vision 2020 8.0 5.7 1,290
Figure 39
Source: Authors’ calculations
The base line scenario gives a fair, yet not impressive, long term per capita growth rate of 2.1
percent per year. The level of GDP per capita attains $595 in constant 1996 dollar terms in the
year 2020, which corresponds to a cumulative growth of about 65 per cent in the 1996-2020
-112-
period. This performance is improved considerably in the best case scenario, where growth is
more than one percentage point higher.
As is clear from Table 5 the Vision 2020 goal appears hopelessly unrealisticfrom the perspective
of the year 2000. In the best case scenario, per capita income is estimated just under $780 in
2020. This is more than double the level in 1996, but still significantly below the middle income
status aspired to in Vision 2020. The GDP growth rate in the best case secenario is 2.5
percentage points short of the godal.
There is no doubt that our scenarios have a wide margin of error, and the objective of formulating
these scenarios is not to provide a precise forecast of the state of the Ghanaian economy two
decades ahead. Nevertheless, the results are telling. The Ghana government has adopted a long
term view of development, with a time horizon that stretches more than two decades into the
future. Such long term projections could provide important information for agents contemplating
investment decisions in the face of future risk – but only if the projection is credible. Unrealistic
targets only reinforce suspicion about the economic policy package.
Despite these reservations, it is clear from the foregoing that Ghana has good potential for future
growth. But it will remain a low income country for the foreseeable future.
-113-
References
Abbey, J.L.S. 1989. “On Promoting Successful Adjustment: Some Lessons from Ghana,” The
1989 Per Jacobson Lecture, Washington, D.C., IMF.
Agyeman-Duah, B. 1987. “Ghana, 1982-6: The Politics of the PNDC,” Journal of Modern
African Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 613-42.
Ahiakpor, J.C.W. 1991. “Rawlings, Economic Policy Reform, and the Poor: Consistency or
Betrayal?” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol 29, No. 4, pp 583-600.
Amnesty International, Annual Report, London, Amnesty International Publications, various
years.
Amoah, J.E.K. 1995. Cocoa Outline Series, No. 1: Development of Consumption, Commercial
Production and Marketing, Accra, Jemre Enterprises.
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